


Adrift

by darth_fluffy



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, Angst, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Boys' Love, Character Development, Deviates From Canon, Falling In Love, Feels, For Want of a Nail, Forced Bonding, Getting to Know Each Other, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Jetko, Love, Love/Hate, M/M, Redemption, Slash, Survival, Yaoi, but everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked, canon divergent from Serpent's Pass, god i love ao3's tagging system, heel-face turn, i'm getting all philosophical with the tags for some reason, let's try not to die of thirst, literal ship sinking lol, lost at sea, love can change people, love is stronger than hate, me trying to write something with actual character development and themes, not the usual plot for this ship, shipwrecked, they never even make it to Ba Sing Se
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darth_fluffy/pseuds/darth_fluffy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko knew the Fire Nation had a habit of sinking refugee ships heading to Ba Sing Se, but he never dreamed it'd happen to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before We Crash

_"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr._

***

_His dreams are never peaceful._

_It’s been eight years since his parents were killed, and_ still _he can see their deaths in his dreams, smell the acrid smoke, hear their terrified screams._

_The worst part is always at the end, when the firebender turns his head toward Jet and_ smiles, _a cruel, sadistic smile that he knows will haunt him for the rest of his life_.

_Tonight is no different._

_The scene plays out like it always has: Jet sees the smoke and flame through the trees and comes running, Smellerbee right behind him, and part of him hopes that it’s not true, that it’s all some elaborate trick and Mom and Dad are still safe and they’ll hug him and tell him everything’s going to be alrigh-_

_His thoughts stop short as he turns the corner and sees what remains of his village. Desperately, he calls for his parents, but they never come. And they never will again._

_As the tears roll down his cheeks, one thought burns in his mind like a fiery blast:_ Someday, they will pay.

***

Jet wakes with a start, his heart pounding a million miles a minute, his sheets soaked in sweat. For a second, he thinks he’s still in the forest, still fighting, still a Freedom Fighter, but then he remembers.

He’s on the ferry going to Ba Sing Se. He’s not in the forest anymore. The fire can’t find him here. They can’t hurt him now. _He_ can’t hurt anyone now.

He’s going to make a fresh start, going to wash away his past just like-

_Just like the dam._

Jet rolls over onto his stomach, his body stiff with fatigue. But even as he closes his eyes again, he knows it’s futile. He’s not going to go back to sleep tonight. He never does.

With a sigh, he pushes himself out of bed and heads out of his meager third-class cabin and into the cool night air.

The deck of the ferry is still and silent at this late hour. It’s almost completely dark; the only spots of light are the candle in the window of the guard’s house and the cold, distant moon and stars above.

A figure stands in the pooling moonlight, looking out over the railing and to the choppy lake, his back to Jet; but even from this distance he can tell that it’s Li.

And he’s not wearing a shirt.

Jet wonders where he can find a cool source of water at this hour.

_Okay, play it cool, Jet._

He rakes his fingers through his mop of brown hair, puts his best smirk on his face, and steps up to join Li by the railing.

“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?”

Li’s only response is a nod. That was expressive for him, Jet has quickly learned.

“Bad dreams?” Another nod. “Look, I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”

“What? Am I not good enough for you?” Jet says, only half joking. _We’re the same; you and I. We’re both so scarred._

“No, it’s not like that, “ Li continues, his voice sounding more uncomfortable by the second. “It’s just… personal.”

“The Fire Nation destroyed my life too.” The words hang in the cool night air. Jet squeezes his eyes shut as the torrent of painful memories threatens to drown him, the images from his dream still fresh in his mind. There are other scenes too; a village destroyed by a catastrophic flood, the fear in an old woman’s eyes as Jet digs his swords into her throat. The Fire Nation isn’t the only bad guy here. Jet can see that now. “They left me orphaned and alone. I’ve had to fight for everything. So trust me, you’re not the only one they’ve hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” Li says, his voice thick with bitterness and guilt and something else Jet can’t quite name.

Jet folds his arms across his chest and leans against the railing, his protective shell back. “Why be? It wasn’t your fault.”

That’s when it happens.

A glowing orb whistles through the air high above them before colliding with the central tower of the ship in a deafening explosion. They’re under attack.

Jet has tried to run. But the fire has still managed to find him.

***

_Well, this is ironic,_ Zuko thinks. _The Fire Nation, firing on their own prince._

He knew this could happen, that many of the naval commanders- especially the more sadistic ones like the deceased Commander Zhao- had a habit of preying on refugee ships, but he never dreamed that _his_ ship would be targeted.

_I could die, right here. The banished, scarred, failure of a prince, forced into hiding among Earth Kingdom refugees and killed by his own people. What a cruel joke._

_It’s just not fair! Why can’t something in my life just come easily for once?!_

“What the hell are you doing just standing there?! We’re _under attack!”_

Jet’s words snap him back to reality and, though he still feels like punching something or burning that something to a crisp, Zuko follows the other boy as they run desperately across the deck of the ship.

_I have to find Uncle. We have to get out of here._

As he leaves, he can hear Jet directing the growing throng of refugees to the lifeboats behind him. His eyes scan the crowd, searching for any sign of Uncle Iroh.

He isn’t there.

_Spirits, please let him be safe…_

He races to his room, fighting the smoke and flames, and stops short when he sees what awaits him inside the door.

His uncle isn’t there.

_No…_

Something hot and wet is pricking at the corners of his good eye and threatening to spill down his cheek.

His uncle _can’t_ be gone. It’s just not possible.

Sick with worry, Zuko turns and runs, not even bothering to push the flames away. He tries to tell himself that everything will be fine, but it’s been three years since he last believed everything would be _fine_ and he can’t think anyway because the smoke surrounding him is heavy and hot, a ghoul trying to steal the breath from his lungs.

He can’t breathe. And the first lesson of firebending is every flame needs to breathe. Or they die. Simple as that.

_I can’t breathe. I can’t bend. I’m going to die. I don’t want to die. Not like this. Not now. Please. I can’t die like this. No… I can’t breathe Ican’tbreatheIcan’tBREATHE…_

Zuko squeezes his eyes shut as the torrent of panic threatens to overwhelm him. He _can’t_ die like this. He _won’t_.

_Never give up without a fight._

_Wherever you are, Uncle, I hope I made you proud._

He takes off at a dead run through the bowels of the ship, down hallways laced with flame like fiery tapestries. His lungs scream for air. Time is running short. If he can’t find an exit soon…

As Zuko turns the corner, he almost runs straight into a door. It’s on fire, just like practically everything on the ship at the moment. But it’s what he sees through the narrow peephole in the door that catches his attention.

Sky.

The deck of the ship lies just beyond the door. He’s finally found a way out. He’s safe. He’s going to live after all.

Zuko reaches for the doorknob, choking back a scream as his hands touch the hot metal, and gives it a turn.

Nothing happens. The door is locked.

_Agni, why do these things always happen to me?!_ Features tight with frustration, Zuko slams his fist into the door and is rewarded with a sharp, scalding pain as hot splinters lodge themselves in his knuckles. This time he doesn’t hold back his scream.

_Wait._

Through the pain, his mind manages to wrap around one small hope: the wood gave. When he punched it, he felt it buckle under his hand. If he could break the door down…

Zuko glances back down the hallway. He’ll never survive long enough to find another exit, he knows. His lungs are screaming for air, he feels dizzy and can only barely stand, and black spots dance in front of his eyes, threatening to drown him in their depths. It’s now or never.

With the last of his strength, Zuko breathes as deeply as he can in the tight, smoke-choked space, feels the energy surge through his chi, and _pushes._

The flame responds, parting to reveal the charred wood beneath. Zuko throws himself against the door with all his might, begging the spirits to just grant him this, just once-

Nothing.

He tries again, harder this time. He can’t afford to lose now.

The door gives way, and as Zuko staggers out onto the deck of the ferry, so does his strength. The young prince passes out and crumples to the burning deck in a heap, literally in his element.

***

The smoke hangs hot and acrid in the air, and all Jet can see is his village burning.

Over the years, he’s learned to take the fear that fills him with he smell of smoke and channel it into anger, to never break, never show it, always stay strong, but somewhere inside him is still that eight-year-old boy, newly orphaned and lost in the flames.

_These people are innocent, just refugees- why would they_ do _something like this?_

“Aannd… that’s everyone,” Smellerbee calls across the deck of the ship. “ C’mon, Jet, let’s go. It won’t be long now until the whole ship sinks.”

Jet nods his assent and begins to run across the deck of the ship- now tilting crazily- but before he can reach her, he spots a crumpled figure lying amidst the flames.

As he gets closer, he can see that it’s Li.

Jet swallows hard and kneels down beside the unconscious boy. To his relief, he can tell that Li isn’t seriously injured. He has some minor burns but nothing to serious- it looks like he merely passed out from smoke inhalation.

And of course, there’s that scar- that scar that first told Jet of a kindred spirit, someone who’s suffered the same way he has, someone whose dreams were haunted the same way Jet’s were. Someone who knew what it was to burn. Someone who could understand.

Jet reaches out and runs his fingers over Li’s scar, feeling the way the flesh pulled tight across the other boy’s cheekbone and the contrast between his scarred and unscarred skin, so incredibly sharp. _The Fire Nation hurt you, too,_ he thinks. _They hurt all of us._

Not for the first time since the attack began, Jet feels the familiar rage welling up inside him, the rage that has guarded him through half his life. After the dam, he’s _tried_ to put his hate behind him; but on nights like this, with the fire so close at hand, he wonders if he was wrong to ever let it go.

“Is he…” As she comes up behind them, Smellerbee can’t quite bring herself to answer the question. Behind her stands Longshot, his face graver than usual.

“He’ll be fine,” Jet answers. “Just breathed in too much smoke. We need to get him to the lifeboats. The ship’s almost gone.”

Jet stands, Li heavy and limp in his arms, and the quartet of Freedom Fighters starts running across the deck towards the lifeboats. It’s slow going, however; the smoke around them is hot and suffocating, like they’re drowning in fire, and by this point the slope of the deck is almost to steep to walk across.

But Jet’s never been one to give up easily and neither has Smellerbee or Longshot; so they keep running, battling the flames until they’re nearly at the lifeboats. Nearly to safety.

But not close enough.

For in that moment, the ship rocks violently to one side, sending Jet and the others sliding towards the water. Smellerbee and Longshot manage to grab onto fragments of wood sticking out of the deck, and by some miracle, the boards support their weight.

Jet isn’t so lucky.

Still holding Li, he has no choice but to tumble down the deck, through the railing and into the empty air.

The last thing he hears before he hits the water is Smellerbee’s desperate cry of “Jet!”

Then he hits the water with a shocking slap that sets his nerves alight and makes every inch of him sting. But he’s got bigger problems.

The water is cold and insistent, pulling him down into his icy depths. Jet’s a fairly good swimmer but he’s never dealt with waves like this, where the water surges with a strength all of its own and the whitecaps break over his head.

The water closes over him.

_No!_ Fighting through the waves and his own panic, Jet kicks and claws his way to the surface and takes in a shuddering, gasping lungful of air.

It’s funny, really; he always took air for granted before, but now, he has to fight the water for every breath.

As his head breaks the surface again, he can see someone floating among the charred wreckage, very still.

The scar on his face tells Jet all he needs to know.

_No. Not him._

Jet splashes his way over to Li who is fortunately not dead, but he’s semiconscious and has breathed far too much water already and really can’t swim on his own by this point; so Jet wraps his arms around him and tries to stay afloat for both of them, but he can’t.

He’s already tiring, every muscle in his body aching as he fights his losing battle against the waves. Li’s mostly deadweight, and Jet thought swimming for one person was hard. If he can’t find something to hold onto soon, they’ll both drown. Together.

_Not how I thought I’d die. I always imagined that I’d take a few more Fire Nation bastards with me._

Jet turns his head to see a piece of debris floating in the water just a few strokes away from him. And not just any piece of debris- this one’s the size of those big earth coins and shaped much the same way.

_That’ll do._

Even though it can’t be more then ten feet, it’s still an almost impossible swim. The icy water saps his strength at every move he makes. He can already feel himself growing cold.

_You can do this. You need to live. Can’t go down without making them pay for this._

An idea flashes through his mind: his swords. They’re weighing him down. If he could just get rid of them…

_No._

His hookswords belonged to his father. They’re the only things Jet has left. He’d never give them up. Not ever.

_But if it’s between that and drowning…_

The water closes over his head again and the choice is made for him.

_I’m sorry, Dad._

He reaches an arm over his back, detaches his swords, and watches as the last remnants of a happier life sink away.

Refusing to take a moment to grieve, Jet struggles his way over to their makeshift raft and, with a lot of thrashing and cursing, manages to haul himself and Li onto it. As Li manages to provide an impressive display of coughing up lake water, Jet turns to look at what remains of the ship.

It really isn’t much of a ship at this point; the wreck has flipped completely on its side and is utterly engulfed in flames like a dying phoenix. As Jet watches, the ferry, once so great, slips beneath the waves in a cloud of steam, leaving only a scattering of debris across the water’s surface.

An object bobs into his line of sight: a ragdoll in a singed pale green dress, her black yarn hair floating around her face. There are a thousand possible fates as to what happened to her owner and Jet knows none of them are pleasant.

_Might be dead, killed by smoke or by fire. Or she could have drowned. Or, if she’s alive, she’s probably in the same situation we are; no food, no water, and no way to get help._

_Well, shit,_ Jet thinks as the enormity of their situation hits him.

But he’ll survive. He _has_ to.

Because _someone_ needs to pay for what happened tonight. _I was wrong to try and give up my hate. I can see that now_.

And maybe Li can help him fight. Or just help him in general.

Jet supposes time will tell.


	2. Frozen Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picking up the pieces.

Open water is no place for a firebender.

Zuko knows. He’s spent three years at sea after all.

_And here I am again, with no food and no way of getting help. Well. This just sucks._

_What would Uncle say if he was here?_

_Probably something about how every cloud has a silver sparkle or something. Or something about how tea is the answer to life, the universe and everything. Neither of those would really helpful to me right now._

“Hey, Li. We need a plan.”

Zuko blinks at the sound of Jet’s voice. _Who? Oh, right. He’s talking to me._ “Right. A plan,” he says as he desperately tries to get his brain to work through the haze of pain and grief and fatigue. “First things first, we’re going to need food. There’s plenty of fish in this lake- if only we could find some way to get them out… d’you still have your swords?”

“No. Too heavy,” Jet answers, his face grim. “But we’ve got some bigger problems. The Eastern Lake’s a salt lake. If we aren’t rescued soon, we’ll die of thirst way before we have to worry about starvation.” He pauses to let the words sink in. 

Zuko hadn’t noticed it before, but now he can taste the salt on his tongue, sharp and pungent. A flavorful death warrant for the two boys stranded on the tiny piece of driftwood.

Zuko’s come close to death many times before, but now’s the first time he _knows_ it. Now, sitting here in the cool night air with his burned hand throbbing like a second heart, he can see it coming with all the subtlety of a charging mooselion. 

_This is how I’m going to die, isn’t it? In a few days, I’ll go mad from thirst, I’ll shrivel up and then I’ll be dead. I’ll be dead with in a few days. And I couldn’t imagine a more dishonorable, more undignified, way to die._

Suddenly feeling very small, Zuko buries his face into his hands.

The sudden sensation of a warm arm squeezing his shoulders startles him out of his sadness. He hadn’t quite pegged Jet to be the comforting type. _He’s touching me… he’s putting his arm around me… is this… normal? For friends? Is that what we are? What do I do?_ Zuko thinks, his breath caught in his throat.

“We’re gonna get rescued, okay? We’re gonna get rescued, we’ll find your uncle, and everything’s gonna be okay, “ Jet says, a hint of a smile ghosting his lips. “Cause we’re survivors, you and I. And that’s what survivors do.”

“My uncle once told me-“ Zuko swallows around the lump in his throat- “to never give up without a fight. So… I don’t.” Zuko turns his head to catch Jet’s gaze. His next words are barely a whisper. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Hey, no problem. I’m good with morale.” Jet’s cocky grin is back in full force now, and Zuko can’t help but notice how the grass stalk that’s clenched between Jet’s lips bobs up and down when he talks. It’s almost hypnotic, like those charmed snakes Uncle tells him they have in the southern Earth Kingdom.

“You have to be, to lead a group of kids against the Fire Nation. Those ash-makers break people quick,” Jet continues, anger sharpening his voice. “They broke you, they broke me, and they won’t stop until the whole world’s up in smoke. You _saw_ what they did tonight. They’ll keep hurting people until there’s no one left to hurt. They need to be _stopped!”_

Jet’s rant ends in a shout that echoes across the surface of the water and slices through the formerly still, quiet night, and Zuko is suddenly hyperaware of the way Jet’s fingers, tight with anger, are digging into his shoulder. _If he knew who I truly am… what would he do?_

Zuko tries to pull away from the other boy, but just then, the cold wind picks up again, sending shivers down his bare back.But Jet’s arm around him is as insistent as it is warm, and Jet’s eyes are still sparking with hatred and hurt. It’s a hurt that Zuko’s seen on the faces of Song and Lee and all of the refugees on the boat, only magnified a thousandfold and forged into a blade within Jet. Zuko knows he should comfort him- it’s what friends do, if they are, indeed, friends- but _how?_

_Should I say something? Do something? What should I say? Uncle would offer him some tea and he’d know just what to say to help him… but what do_ I _do?_

His fingers trembling from more than cold, Zuko reaches out and slowly- as if this moment is a crystal sculpture that might shatter at the slightest touch- presses his hand against the small of Jet’s back, hoping against hope that he would feel the comfort that lay in that touch.

Jet pulls him closer and then he wraps his other arm around Zuko’s waist and that’s when Zuko realizes that this is rapidly becoming a full–on hug.

He jerks back like he’s just tried to hug Azula while she’s lightningbending, his heart pounding like he’s just been shocked. “So, um, “ Zuko says, his dry mouth an unpleasant reminder about how they could both be dead in a few days. “ The… plan thing. Yeah. The plan. Any ideas for resolving our water situation?”

Jet casts his gaze to the bright, clear, full moon and shimmering stars above, not a single cloud to obstruct the view. “Hope that it rains?”

“Any other ideas?”

“Hey, if you’ve got any better ideas, I’d like to hear them,” Jet snaps. “Unless you’re a waterbender and I didn’t know it…”

_About that…_

_“Dammit!_ If only we had something to use as a signal, we could be rescued _so_ much _quicker_!” Jet grumbles. ”If only we had something to build a fire with…”

Zuko sucks in a sharp breath as Jet’s words hit home.

_Something to build a fire with…_

He could save them. 

With nothing more than a thought, he could save them both.

The question is whether Jet would let him live to see their rescue.

Zuko remembers the dusty little town, remembers Lee and his quirky gap-toothed grin, and the boy’s mother with her sad eyes. He remembers hearing the story of how Lee had lost his older brother to the war and how it had called him back to his own childhood, how Lu Ten had been almost a brother to him and he’d lost him in the war, too. And he’d lost his mother, too, before the week was out. 

But most of all, he remembers the look on the villager’s faces after he’d firebent. Some of them had looked shocked, as if they simply couldn’t believe he’d had the gall to firebend in polite company. Others had eyes brimming with hurt and betrayal, their savior revealed as a liar and worse.

Most, however, just wore one emotion: cold, hard rage.

Zuko learned three lessons that day: one, that no act of charity goes unresented, two, that he was still the Fire Prince and he’d never be able to lose himself in the Earth Kingdom, even if he wants to. Which he doesn’t. And three, he could run to the ends of the earth and he’ll never be accepted. He’ll always be an outcast. 

And now it’s happening again.

Zuko discovers that he doesn’t want it to happen again.

Why _can’t I just find the Avatar and go home?! Why does my life have to be this hard?! Why… why can’t I just_ belong _somewhere for once?_

“Li? You okay?”

Zuko shoots Jet his best glare. “I’m _fine.”_  

“Okay, great. I was just checking. You seemed angry about something.”

“I’m _not angry,”_ Zuko says through gritted teeth.

“I can see that.” Jet stands up and steps forward to stand beside him, their hands not quite touching.  “Pretty night, isn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“Listen, Li… there’s something I wanted to ask you,” Jet says and Zuko thinks he can hear a slight of nervousness in his voice, so unlike Jet. _Does he… does he know?_

“We made a pretty good team on the ferry, didn’t we?” 

Zuko blinks in surprise. _Where is he going with this?_

"The thing is, once we get to Ba Sing Se, there’s going to be a lot of refugees that need our help. The Freedom Fighters need some good people to help. Someone who’s smart and can fight. Someone like you.”

Zuko takes a step away from Jet, his mouth suddenly dry. “Jet… I can’t…”

Jet follows Zuko. “Sure you can. You can fight, you’ve been hurt by the Fire Nation, and you’re determined to _do_ something about it.”

_I’m not._

“We’re outcasts, you and I. And us outcasts have to stick together. We have to watch each other’s backs. Because no one else will.”

_Someone wants me around._

It’s such an alien feeling to Zuko, this feeling of _belonging._ And even though he knows it’s only an illusion, that Jet would hate him if he knew, he can’t quite snuff out the glimmer of hope in his heart.

“So,” Jet says, practically radiating charisma, “you in or out?” 

Zuko pushes down the part of him that wants to take Jet up on his offer. “Thanks, but I just don’t think you’d want me in your group.”

“Yes.” His voice is serious now- serious and a little sad. “I do.” 

And Zuko feels Jet’s hand wrapping around his own and before his mind can wrap itself around the fact that _they’re holding hands,_ Jet’s fingers tighten around the worst of the burn. 

Zuko bites his lip to keep from shouting as he jerks his hand back, tears glistening in his eyes.

“Are you okay?”

_I don’t need your pity,_ Zuko thinks as he hears the concern in Jet’s voice. “It’s fine.”

“Let me see.”

“I _said_ it’s _fine.”_

“And _I_ said, let me _see.”_

Zuko sighs and holds his injured hand up for Jet and himself to see. As it turns out, his hand is definitely not fine.

His formerly pale skin is now an angry, bright, violent red; dotted with pale blisters along his knuckles, where the fire had touched him the most.

Jet sucks in a breath. “Ouch." 

Zuko pulls his hand back, cradling it against his chest. “It’s nothing; it’s barely even two degrees. I’ll be _fine.” And besides, firebenders heal fast… I still can see out of that eye. Sort of._

“Well…” Jet says with a smirk, “if you want, I could help you with that. I know a thing or two about treating burns.” 

“Well, guess what? So do I.” 

“I’ll bet I know more than you do, though. You spend most of your life fighting firebenders, you learn quick.”

Almost unconsciously, Zuko traces the edges of the scar with his good hand, suppressing a shudder at the memory of that long-ago pain. Jet thought the burn on his hand was bad, but it’s nothing compared to that.

_You grow up in the Fire Nation royal family, you learn about burns too, Jet,_ he thinks. Out loud, he says, “I’m not so sure.”

“Oh, _really?_ I bet you think you’re so much _better_ than me don’t you, Li?”

“What? No, I…” _Well, actually, I kind of am better than you. I’m still a prince, and I’ll be a prince again. I’ll get my honor back… somehow. I’ll think of something._

_“Relax._ I was only teasing.” Jet plucks the stalk of grass from his mouth and idly flips it between his fingers. “You really need to get out more.”

_You’re starting to sound like Uncle._

“So… about what I was saying earlier…” Jet wraps his arm around Zuko’s shoulders again and Zuko knows he should push him away, but he can’t seem to move. “Well? Are you coming?”

Zuko doesn’t get the chance to respond. 

Something jostles their raft.

And a fin slices through the moonlit surface of the water in front of them dark against the luminous white.

It’s a serpent.

A heartbeat later, a great, fanged head slices out of the water, heading straight for Jet.

Zuko does the only thing he can do. 

He raises his hands, palms out, and _pushes._

And a jet of flame shoots from his hands, a second sun against the dark of the night. The serpent makes a sound halfway between a hiss and a roar as the flames strike it and it slides beneath the surface of the water.

But the look on Jet’s face is enough to make Zuko wish that the serpent had taken him after all.


	3. Still Fight And I Don't Know Why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jet doesn't handle this well.

Li is a firebender.

Li is a firebender.

_Li is a firebender._

It doesn’t seem real.

But Jet can’t deny it- he _saw_ the fire blossom from the hands of someone he trusted. Someone he worked with. Someone he wanted.

Someone he _still_ wants, even now that he can see him for the monster he truly is. 

Jet can’t help but think back to their meeting on the ferry- how he’d seen the swords at Li’s side and realized instantly the presence of another refugee who could fight, how he’d seen the scar on his face and realized something more. Two kindred spirits, both burnt, both suffering; and even before they’d stolen the food, Smellerbee was already asking him when he’d becomes such an idealistic schoolgirl. 

_But all that’s gone now. He’s Fire._

_And damn it, it_ hurts.

Li’s eyes meet his own; and though his vision is oddly blurred, Jet can still see just what a bright, fiery _gold_ they are.

_Unmistakable. I should have known._

_No. They’re not beautiful. They never were._

His village is burning all over again in the tiny suns that are Li’s eyes.

And Jet feels the familiar rage settle back around his heart, and he’s going to- he’s going to make Li _pay_. He’s going to beat the _shit_ out of him and laugh about it, because Li was going to be his second chance, the first of the _new_ Freedom Fighters, but it’s all a lie now and he probably helped sink the ship himself. Somehow.

_Because that’s what firebenders do. They kill, they burn, they destroy._

Jet’s going to hurt him until he can’t hurt anymore, because some dark, hidden part of him hasn’t stopped wanting Li, wanting his scar and his too-bright eyes and his lean, fluid grace, even now. And Jet hates him all the more for it. 

_I was stupid. Shouldn’t have let him get so close._

_But now he’ll pay. For everything._

Li’s good eye goes wide as Jet lunges for his throat.

***

_I knew he’d turn on me._

Before Jet can reach him, Zuko drives his knee into the other boy’s kidney. Jet staggers backwards, his face white but his eyes still filled with rage. “You… you… you’re…” 

“A firebender. Yeah, I know, “ Zuko says coldly. “Tell you what. You want a fight? I’ll give you a fight.”

His words send Jet’s fist flying toward his face. Zuko barely dodges in time before retaliating with a one-two punch of his own.

And as their fight begins, Zuko can’t help but remember a similar fight, just a few weeks ago...

_Why did I save him? I shouldn’t have saved him. Kindness never gets me anywhere. You think I’d learn._

_But I knew all along he’d turn on me when he found out._

_I… I just didn’t expect it to hurt like this._

***

Jet doesn’t quite know how long they’ve been fighting, because all he can see is _Li._

Even when he’s not bending, Li fights like a firebender- aggressive and dynamic, his strikes fast, unpredictable and powerful. Just like fire itself.

But it’s more than that. Li has a distinctive, fluid grace that’s all his own. 

It’s an aristocratic way of fighting, the sort of style that they teach in fancy schools, a sharp contrast to Jet’s own fighting training which essentially amounted to _punch the other guy harder than he can punch you._

But elegant as he is, Li still has his weaknesses. And Jet’s spent years taking ash-makers down. It’s what he’s good at.

_All offense, no defense. If you don’t dodge fast enough, Li-_

Jet's mouth curls into a smug smile as his fist connects with Li’s lips and comes away reddish black. 

- _you can’t win._

His smile vanishes when he sees Li’s fist wreathed in flames.

The punch connects with his jaw, making his teeth clatter inside his mouth and sending stars streaking across his vision and a sharp grunt of pain out of his lips, and all Jet can see is red. The red of the fire, the red of his and Li’s blood, spattered together on their makeshift raft, the red of his shirt. The red of the Fire Nation symbol, the banner under which they murdered thousands, if not millions, of people and made countless other lives a living hell. Including Jet’s own.

The red of the forest, bright with fall. The same forest that Jet flooded in an attempt to kill so many in order to get back at so few. 

He can almost hear Smellerbee’s voice in the back of his mind. _You said you were going to change, Jet!_

_Changing doesn’t mean letting an ash-maker live!_

The red of his village burning, seen through a child’s eyes. 

His punches quicken to the point where Li can barely keep up. The other boy throws that awful fire at him again and again, but Jet is immovable, unstoppable.

That was one of the first lessons Jet drilled into his Freedom Fighters. _Fire can burn you, but it can’t stop you. It takes a talented firebender to actually move objects with their bending. Most firebenders suck at melee, and there’s nothing to stop you from attacking at close range- if you can stand the pain, that is._

Jet’s faced off far worse than this. He can stand the pain. 

Jet keeps hitting Li over and over again, and Li tries to hit him back but he’s tiring, Jet can tell. 

Jet isn’t tiring.

There’s more red now.

***

_He… he beat me._

_Azula wouldn’t have let herself be beaten like this._

_So I won’t either._

_I’m_ not _a failure. I’m_ not _weak._

_Jet won’t kill me._

_I’ll kill him._

_I am_ not _losing this fight!_

Pure rage courses through Zuko’s body, fills his chakras, and explodes from his fingertips.

And a brilliant wall of flame throws Jet clean off their raft and into the icy, serpent-infested water. 

***

For a second Jet hangs in the water, stunned from the impact and his various wounds.

_It’s cool. Needed some burn salve. This works,_ he thinks sleepily.

That’s when the pain hits.

Jet immediately tries to scream, only to be rewarded with a lungful of lake water. Jet’s suffered a lot in his life so far, but this is a special kind of agony, as if every cut is filled with acid.

_I guess this is why they call it salt in the wound,_ he thinks through the blaze of pain _._

A heartbeat later, his mind realizes a new different pain coming from his chest; his lungs are screaming for air.

Jet thrashes his way to the surface, gasps for air, and then immediately starts kicking his way over to the raft.

He’s almost there when he feels the serpent’s teeth close around his calf. 

***

The night is still and peaceful now, the violence of the attack on the ferry and their subsequent brutal fight so far away. Zuko sits on his raft, his only companions the cool night air and the distant stars overhead, and valiantly tries not to wince. 

_Jet messed me up pretty well._

_Well, at least he’s gone now._

That’s when a piercing cry echoes across the water, shattering the stillness.

Zuko whips his head around to see Jet, just a few feet way desperately struggling to pull himself onto the raft, as if held back by some unseen force. Beside him, a great serpentine shape slices through the water, inky black and gleaming in the moonlight.

The situation is clear.

_Should I save him? He’s my enemy, he wants to kill me, everything would be so much easier if he was gone…_

_He saved me._

_I passed out on the deck and the next thing I know, I’m here… with him. He_ had _to have rescued me. It’s the only way I could’ve survived._

_You say you want your honor back, Zuko, well, what’s the honorable thing to do here?! Repay your debt, or be a coward and let him die?_

Their eyes meet, and Zuko can see the deep hurt in the other boy’s eyes and etched across his face, drawing his mouth into a grimace. He doesn’t say a word, but the message is clear: _Help. Please._

Zuko reaches down to grab Jet’s hand and holds onto him with all his strength, ignoring the white-hot jolt of pain that comes from his burned palm. _I’m not letting you go._

But, in the end, it’s a contest of strength. And between a sea serpent and two humans, that contest is already decided. 

Zuko holds on as hard as he can, but it’s simply not enough. Jet’s hand slips from his, and, with a splash of white foam, the Freedom Fighter vanishes beneath the waves.

_No!_

Zuko doesn’t even have a second to think as he raises his hands. 

Twin jets of fire blossom from his palms, casting their reflection on the water like a dying sun. The serpent hisses and thrashes, throwing up an arc of droplets that glitter in the moonlight before slinking away. 

And Jet’s head appears in the water barely a foot away from the edge of the raft, and before Zuko can offer him a hand, he’s somehow already hauled himself out of the water and onto the deck.

“You… you saved me, “ Jet says as he cradles his injured leg, his tone thick with barely contained rage.

“Yes,” Zuko replies. “I did.”

_“Why?”_

“You saved me back on board the ferry. I was merely repaying a debt. It… my honor demanded it,” Zuko says simply. _And I’ve lost too much honor already- I can’t afford to lose any more._

Jet laughs, though there’s no humor in his voice. _“Honorable?_ That’s rich, coming from an ash-maker like you. You kill, you rape, you torture, you plunder, and you’re standing here, wringing your hands about _honor?_ Give me a break.”

_How_ dare _he…?!_ “I have more honor than _you’ll ever know!”_ Zuko practically roars.

“Oh, _really?”_ Jet replies mockingly. “Tell me, Li, what is Fire Nation honor like? Is it some sort of contest to see how many turtleducks you can set on fire? How many war orphans you can create? If you rape someone else’s prisoners, do you have to send them a gift basket with fruit and an ‘I’m Sorry’ note?” 

“It’s _not like that at all,”_ Zuko hisses through clenched teeth. _It’s not like that. It isn’t. It can’t be._ “It’s about _bravery._ It’s about discipline, humility, strength, respect… It’s about obeying your superiors and the sanctity of the Fire Lord’s divine right to rule.” _It’s about not speaking up when you shouldn’t. Just because you’re the crown prince doesn’t mean you know everything._ “It’s… it’s about not breaking down in tears at the first sight of your opponent, even if he’s large, or strong, or- or-“

_Or your father._

_I am_ not _going to cry about this in front of Jet. It just wouldn’t be honorable._

_I’ll get it back. Somehow. Someday. I_ will.

The anger that makes its home in the Fire Prince’s heart is never far out of reach; and now, Zuko calls it to him, letting it sharpen his next words like a blade. “It’s _my culture.”_

“Yeah, well, your culture can go eat boarcupine shit.”

 Zuko’s vision turns red at the sound of Jet’s words, and his foot hits Jet’s teeth with a solid, satisfying _crunch._

Jet gasps in pain as his head is whipped smartly back by the force of Zuko’s kick.  “You _bastard,”_ he says once he’s managed to recover _,_ his words punctuated by a spray of blood and a broken tooth. “I’ll _kill you._ I’ll make sure your death is every bit as painful as you deserve, you… you _monster.”_

With those words, Jet tries to stand. But it doesn’t work out.

Zuko watches as Jet’s knees buckle under him, sending him crashing to the deck with an undignified _thump._

A cold glint in his eyes, the Fire Prince stomps his way to the other side of the raft, as far away from Jet as he can possibly get. 

***

From his place in a crumpled heap on the planks of their hunk of debris, Jet can only watch as Li leaves, his thoughts flying apart at the speed of light.

_I hate him. I hate him I hate him Ihatehim-_

_He saved me._

_Why did he save me? It doesn’t make any sense.  He’s one of_ them _, he’s’ a filthy fucking firebender, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s not_ right. _Why the_ hell _would he save me it doesn’t make any sense he’s_ evil _and he has to die. This… has to be a dream or something. I’m probably still asleep and this is one hell of an elaborate nightmare-_

_Wait. If it’s a nightmare, then why does everything- ow-_ hurt _so much?_

_Or maybe I drowned when the ferry was attacked, and this is the Spirit World. Huh. I thought it’d be… more spiritual than this._

_I know I did some bad shit in my life, but I’m not sure I deserve_ this. 

_Well, I’ll just try to kill him anyway._

Jet pushes down the part of him that says _he saved your life, he might not be all that bad_ and _you said you were going to change_ and the last voice is the worst. _You wanted him all along._

_Shut_ up! _He’s evil and dangerous and he helped sink the ferry himself. He was probably setting it on fire when I found him, what else could he have been doing in there? It makes perfect sense. He was setting the interior cabins on fire, and probably killing more than a few refugees too, when he got overwhelmed by his own smoke and passed out._

_Seriously, could he get any dumber?_

_And I_ saved _him. I should have guessed. Ugh. What an idiot._

_Well, I’ll kill him now._

_If I can stand up, that is._

Slowly, every muscle in his body trembling from exhaustion, Jet pulls himself into a sitting position. _Okay. You can do this, Jet. You can stand._

His vision is a field of swimming black spots.

Jet tries to rise, but his muscles just won’t cooperate. _Never noticed… just how heavy I was._

_Why is the world spinning around?_

Then a dark tide washes over his vision and Jet knows nothing at all.


	4. Forget All Common Sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout.

Firebenders rise with the sun. 

Slowly but steadily, the eastern sky is beginning to lighten, lifting the black veil of night from the sky. Zuko can barely see it- his right eye is swollen almost as shut as his left- but then again, he doesn’t need to. 

He can feel it in his bones, in his chakras and blood, the inferno in miniature that he has always carried within his heart. Now it surges, gaining strength again at the promise of the sun, though dawn is barely more than a hint at this point.

Zuko casts his limited gaze to the deep blue of the eastern sky, savoring the safety that comes with dawn. He’s never liked the dark. Most firebenders don’t.

But for Zuko, it’s more than that. When he was younger, nighttime was Azula’s favorite time to pull all manner of nasty pranks, like the time where she set the canopy of Zuko’s bed on fire in the middle of the night. That wasn’t the only night during his childhood that had ended with Zuko sleeping in Ursa’s room during the night. 

Then one day, his mother wasn’t there for him anymore.  

That had happened during the night too.

And Agni Kais were traditionally fought at sunset, and so Zuko had spent a very long night alone in the aftermath of one, unable to sleep from the sheer agony and the bitter sting of humiliation…

When the sun rose after that night, he was banished, a disgrace.

_And now I’m here, not only exiled but a traitor as well, and I’ve been stranded at sea in a completely random attack. By my own people._

_Every time I think my life can’t possibly get any worse, Agni just keeps on surprising me._

_Why?_ he shouts wordlessly to the dawn. _Why?_

It’ll be another few hours before the light touches the Fire Nation capital, Zuko knows. But the dawn will come.

Someday, the dawn will come.

_Someday, I’ll come home._

***

_He doesn’t always see his parents’ death in his dreams. Often, the images are more chaotic, more jumbled, but they’re never good. Some nights, the faces of Freedom Fighters- kids- long gone flash through his mind. Other times, he sees all the people he’s killed in a far more direct way, their blood clinging stubbornly to his hands._

_Sometimes, it’s simpler than that. Sometimes, there’s nothing but fire and the world is_ ending _in fire, and all Jet can do is watch because, by this point, he knows he’s lost._

_Smellerbee and Longshot always assumed that the reason Jet insisted sleeping away from everyone else was because he wanted to make himself look important. Like an actual commanding officer in an army somewhere, instead of the leader of a ragtag band of kids hiding in trees._

_Jet never told them the truth._

***

A soft whimper behind him draws Zuko’s attention away from the sky, to where Jet is lying in a crumpled heap on the raft, one arm stretching towards Zuko as if he had been reaching for him when he fell.

Zuko can see the burns, cuts, and bruises from their nighttime fight marking his once-handsome face- none of them are that bad, though. But still, though, he looks oddly peaceful. In sleep, the hard lines of his face have smoothed out, leaving a softer, almost childlike expression in their wake.

_I should probably kill him now._

It’s the sensible thing to do, he knows- they’ve just spent the night trying to kill each other, after all- and yet, a small part of Zuko breaks at the thought. 

_Could I do it? Could I burn him to death? Here, now? Could I smell his flesh burning, hear him crying, and still keep going? I don’t want to…_

_I obviously can’t kill him by firebending; he’d just wake up. I’ll have to find some other way._

His eyes scan their raft, searching for a potential weapon.

_There!_

Just a few feet away from him is one of the iron nails that had held the ship together in its former life. Cautiously, Zuko reaches out and runs the edge of his thumb over its point.

_It’s sharp._ Really _sharp._  

_I have a weapon. I could kill him right now, and he’d never feel a thing. I could end all this._

_It’s what Azula would do, it’s what Father would_ want _me to do…_

_Uncle wouldn’t do it- he’d probably offer him some calming tea or something…_

_What would_ I _do?_

Zuko looks back to the eastern horizon, where the edge of the sky almost seems to be dipped in gold. The surface of the lake forms an imperfect mirror, distorted by the gentle waves. The overall effect is that of a sandwich of color- indigo overhead, where the last few valiant stars hold out, shading to cerulean, and then, close to the horizon, the sky glows yellow and gold. The same pattern is repeated on the water- a soft golden glow near the horizon, then an abrupt transition to an ever-deepening blue.

 It’s a beautiful sight, but the Fire Prince has other things on his mind. _The sun’s almost up- he won’t be able to take me in a fight during the day. I can hold off until night, make my decision then…_

_No. Father always said that a good Fire Lord was decisive- and that I wasn’t decisive enough. I need to make my decision_ now.

He gives the board holding the nail a sharp yank. Nothing. _C’mon, you stupid board…_

Zuko tries again, and this time, with a sharp _crack!_ of splintering wood, the board gives way. He has a weapon now. 

He turns toward Jet, mentally steeling himself for the task at hand. _I’ve never killed someone before… how hard can it be? All I need to do is stab him in the neck and he’ll bleed out._

_The- his blood will be everywhere… it won’t be pretty. Or pleasant._

_One stroke, and he’ll be gone._

One stroke, and the boy Zuko knew from the ferry- the dangerously charismatic boy who’d invited him to steal the food together, who’d rescued him from the burning ferry and comforted him during their first minutes adrift, who’d made Zuko feel like he _belonged_ somewhere for once, would be gone.

_What is your_ problem, _Zuko? He hates you, he wants you dead, just kill him already!_

Zuko raises the board.

In that same moment the sun climbs over the horizon at last, sending its brilliant rays straight towards the two castaways.

The light wakes.

***

To Jet, his eyes feel like they’ve been earthbent shut.

The second thing he notices is that everything hurts. Everywhere. 

_Ugh…_

It seems like forever before Jet can pry his eyes open. _Sunlight, go ‘way. Too bright._

That’s when he notices that Li is crouching beside him, a board- and its accompanying rusty nail- in hand.

_Knew he’d try to kill me sooner or later._

Jet isn’t terribly fazed. He’s woken up in worse situations than this countless times.

Now fully awake, he rolls to the side, aims a low kick at Li’s ankles, and, trying to ignore the protestations of his injured leg, is on his feet in the same split second it takes for him to send the other crashing to the deck.

_You may want to rethink your plan, Li._

Their eyes meet, gold against greenish brown, and, in the light of day at last, Jet can finally see the extent of the damage he’d inflicted on Li. It’s not pretty.

His good eye is swollen almost as shut as his scarred eye, but it’s turned a much more fantastic array of colors; red, purple, maroon, brown, a sort of sickly combination of yellow, green and gray. His nose is swollen as well, swollen and slightly crooked, and his nose and lips- most of his face, actually- are liberally caked with dried blood.

_Ouch. He looks about as bad as I feel._

A small voice in the back of his mind says, _You said you were going to change, Jet._

_Shut up. This isn’t changing. He deserved what he got, and then some._

_He… he deserves to die for what he did. They_ all _do._

Any errant thread of sympathy within Jet’s mind is lost as he remembers the events of last night, how the Fire Nation had attacked a civilian ship, how it had tried to

_massacre_ hundreds of innocent people, to kill them _all-_ and it would have, if not for his and Smellerbee and Longshot’s efforts-

_They’ll pay for this._

_I’ll kill them all. Every last one of them!_

Seething with rage, Jet lunges for Li- only to collapse the second he puts his weight on his wounded leg, turning the lunge into sort of an awkward stumble. 

Jet crashes into Li at full force and the two boys hit the raft with a painful _thud,_ Jet sprawled on top of Li.

And it’s only then when Jet realizes just how _close_ they are, just a breath away. He can feel the way their bodies press together with a razor-sharp clarity that sets his nerves alight with a different kind of fire, hate and desire forming a muddled mass within his heart.

And if he lowered his head just slightly, his lips would be resting atop Li’s, looking into those _burning_ golden eyes…

_He’s Fire. He’s evil. He sank the ferry. You shouldn’t want him._

Jet’s lips curve into a feral smile as he sits up and says, “It’s time I finished what I started, don’t you think, Li?” 

He draws his fist back to strike.

And stops.

It’s just a speck on the horizon, silhouetted against the rising sun, but it catches his attention nonetheless

_Is that a ship?_

_We’re- I’m- safe!_

He stands up, careful to not put any weight on his injured leg, and squints into the sunrise for a better view. 

That’s when the fire hits him from behind, sending him flying in to the water for the second time in just a few hours. 

Jet barely needs a second to recover before he’s already swimming back to the raft, gritting his teeth against the salt in his wounds. He grabs for the raft, his fingers finding purchase between the boards as he pulls himself up-

Only to abruptly let go as Li stomps on Jet’s fingers as hard as he possibly can. 

Jet yells in pain and cradles his injured hand to his chest, and that’s all the opening Li needs.

A sharp kick to his collarbone sends Jet back into the water, and before he can react, Li is on him, leaning over the edge of the raft and holding him under the water with both hands.

Li’s voice is garbled through the water swishing past Jet’s ears, but he can still make out the words. “What makes you think I’d let you back on the raft?”

Jet squirms his way back to the surface. “You… _bastard…” cough_ “maybe…” _splutter_ “…the ship?”

Li’s grip slackens just slightly, and that’s all the opening Jet needs.

He grabs him and yanks him hard into the water. And in one smooth motion, Li is on top of him, and… 

Their lips are touching.

And before Jet can even realize what he’s doing, before he can remember that this boy in his arms is a _firebender_ who sank the ferry and destroyed his life and has probably done a huge number of horrible things besides, he’s pulling Li into his arms, deepening the kiss, and though Jet would never admit it, a part of him doesn’t want to come up for air.

A part of him never wants to let go.

A sharp kick to his ribs sends Jet tumbling backwards through the water and it isn’t long before the two boys surface, anger flashing in each of their eyes.

_“What the hell are you doing?!”_ Li shouts, a spray of lake water puncturing his words _._ “You trick me into looking for a ship, then drag me into the water and _kiss_ me?! What the _hell?”_

“Well, you see,” Jet deadpans, “it’s your fault entirely that you still manage to be really hot even after I spent the night beating you up.”

“You… you…  argh… _gah!”_ Li says. 

_Eloquent,_ Jet thinks. 

The pain coming from his wounded leg makes an insistent resurgence, and, as he begins to swim back over the raft, Jet’s grateful for the sting.

He needs the sheer physical pain right now, needs the rawness to distract from the fact that he just kissed one of _them._

And he liked it.

Jet feels as if his skin is crawling. 

_I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him and then he won’t make me feel this way ever again._

Jet hauls himself onto the raft and looks up to find an unpleasant surprise. 

Li beat him here.

_Let him share the raft. I don’t care. I’ll kill him the minute he drops his guard anyway._

Jet climbs the rest of the way onto the raft; and, to his surprise, Li doesn’t try to stop him. The scowl on his face deepens at the sight, but nothing more.

Jet turns to look towards the horizon, his eyes desperately scanning for the ship. It isn’t long before he finds it.

_There!_

He can literally see their rescue, floating against the morning sun, a tantalizing dot on the horizon, so close and yet so far. 

_If only we- I- had some way if catching its attention- something to make a signal with…_

Jet’s mouth goes suddenly dry as he realizes just where this train of thought is leading him.

_Like a fire or something…_

He turns to look at Li, who’s now sitting as far as he can possibly get from Jet, his back pointedly turned.

_He’s… he’s a firebender. If he could…_

_And what makes you think he’d help, Jet? He’s a_ firebender _. He wants to kill you._

_It wouldn’t have worked anyway. It’s a stupid plan._

_And besides, I always wanted to take some of those Fire Nation bastards with me when I died, didn’t I? If this plan works, we’ll_ both _live. Better to die here than let one of those monsters live._

_But no… that doesn’t really matter. I can always use him to signal the ship, and then kill him just as we’re about to be rescued. I’d make it out of this alive._

_But I’d still owe my life to an_ ash-maker _._

Jet remembers the events of the previous night, how Li had saved him from the serpent’s jaws- saved him by _bending._

_Well… I kind of already do._

He kicks at the boards in frustration. _Of all the people in the world, this is the one I get stuck with. If only he’d been Earth…_

Jet can almost still feel Li’s lips pressing against his. If he’d been Earth, things would be very different indeed.

_So I want his help. So I want to live. It doesn’t make me a traitor_ , Jet thinks in a desperate attempt to convince himself. _I’m not betraying everything I fought for. I’m_ not.

When he finally opens his mouth to speak, his voice cracks and wavers, so unlike his usual mocking drawl. “Hey, Li… I think I found a way out of this mess. But if we’re going to pull it off, we…” Jet swallows hard. “We need to work together.”


	5. Refuse To Make Amends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for firebending. :)

_He kissed me._

_Why the hell did he kiss me?! We hate each other._

Zuko runs a finger over his lips, sore and swollen and bloody from his first real kiss. _I can’t believe he did that. And he’s so…so… ugh. Of all the people to get stuck on a raft with, it just_ had _to be him._

_If he’s trying to mess with my head, he’s doing a pretty damn fine job of it._

“Hey, Li…” Zuko turns to glare at Jet at the sound of his voice. _You’re the last person on earth I want to talk to right now._

“I think I found a way out of this mess. But if we’re going to pull it off, we…” Jet’s voice is halting and wavering as he speaks, the sound of someone who’s confronting a very harsh truth.

Zuko has no sympathy for him whatsoever. _What’s he playing at now?_

“We need to work together,” Jet finishes, and Zuko’s eyes go as wide as they can at the words. _He wants to work together again?_

_No. This has to be some sort of trick. He hates the Fire Nation so much, why would he work with me?_

_Then again, I still can’t figure out why he kissed me, so…_

“So what’s your answer, Li?” Jet’s voice is stronger now, more demanding, but there’s still a note of quaver in it.

Zuko whirls on Jet, his eyes flashing a murderous gold. “What makes you think _I’d_ want to work with _you?_ Ever since we got stuck here all you’ve done is abuse me, push me around and just be an overall jerk!”

“I only stated hating you once I knew what kind of a _monster-“_

“You practically beat me to a pulp last night, you keep talking about just _how_ much you want to kill me-“

“Well, _you’re_ one of the _bad_ guys,” Jet says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

Zuko ignores him. “-and _then_ you trick me into looking for a ship, and _then_ you drag me into the water and _kiss_ me-“

“The kiss was an _accident!”_ Jet shouts. 

“So just give me _one reason_ why I would want to work with you after all that! _One. Damn. Reason!”_ Zuko’s literally trembling with rage, and tendrils of smoke are drifting up from his clenched fist. It’s never good when a firebender loses control. 

Jet folds his arms over his chest, a predatory grin on his face that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Well, _gosh,_ Li, I don’t know,” he drawls. _“Maybe_ because of the ship?”

“You think I’d fall for that? You’re dumber than you look.”

“I’m serious,” Jet says as he points to the horizon. “Look." 

Zuko squints into the light of the morning sun. “Where? I don’t see anything.”

“Can’t you _see_ it? It’s right _there.”_

Zuko’s eyes follow Jet’s finger, searching desperately…

_There!_

It’s nothing more than a dot, but in their world of sea and sky and the tiny confines of the raft; to Zuko’s eyes, it looks like home.

_Home._

“So what’s your plan?” he asks, struggling to keep his expression neutral.

"The thing is….” Jet can’t quite bring himself to meet Zuko’s eyes. “You’re a firebender.”

“Yeah,” Zuko snaps. “Are you just going to keep telling me stuff I already know, or…?”

“Earlier, you know, I was thinking about how, if we had something to make a signal with, we could try and flag down some passing ships…” He leaves the sentence unfinished, letting it thicken the air between them.

“So let me get this straight,” Zuko says in disbelief. “You, who hates firebenders more than anyone else in the world, are asking one of them to _help_ you flag down a ship. You’re trying to cooperate. With _me.”_

“That just about sums it up, yeah,“ Jet grumbles. “Spirits, _why_ did I think this was a good idea…?”

_If it works…_

_No. He’s probably just trying to get me to lower my guard. That has to be it._

_He wants to kill me; he’s made that quite clear already. Why should I believe him now?_

_But he’s not lying about the ship. It’s_ there. _I saw it with my own eyes._

Zuko glances around at his surroundings. He’s trapped in a world of water with not a speck of land in sight, and the sky above him is a delicate blue, untouched by any hint of clouds, let alone rain.

_And if we don’t get rescued soon, I’ll die anyway. What do I have to lose?_

_Once we manage to flag down a ship, he’ll probably kill me- he won’t need me any more after that. But if I can get him to promise that he won’t…_

“I’ll do it,” Zuko says. “On one condition.” 

Jet nods. “Shoot.” 

“You let me live past our rescue.”

“No way in hell,” Jet snarls.

Zuko bristles. “If you want to die here so badly, then fine by me. Suit yourself. I don’t care.”

He turns his back to Jet and stomps over to the edge of the raft, where he stands looking out at the great expanse of _blue._

 _So much water… so much_ blue…

Zuko knows where he belongs, and it isn’t here.

***

 _Let him_ live? _After all that he’s_ done?

 _He’s the reason we’re here in the first place!_ He _sank the ship!_

_In this world some people deserve to die. And if I can’t kill him, then, well…_

An idea crosses his mind. _I could always lie; tell him that I’ll let him live and then double-cross him. Would be worth it just to see the “oh crap” look on his face._

“Hey, Li,” Jet calls. “The ship isn’t going to be here forever. If you want to get rescued, I’d suggest you do something _now.”_

Li narrows his eyes- quite a feat considering the state of them. _“Fine._ I’ll do it. But if you so much as think about stabbing me in the back later-“ His hands curl into balls. “Just remember which one of us can shoot fire out of his hands.”

“Oh, I’m not going to forget that anytime soon,” Jet promises, a cold gleam in his eyes.

He stands there, paralyzed, as Li’s hands erupt in flame.

 _No,_ he tells himself. _You need him alive._

Jet grits his teeth. 

_You need to suppress your emotions._

The fire builds, towering into the sky, a terrible, bloody orange against the blue.

And suddenly, he’s eight years old again, watching his house burn through the tears and ashes that fill his eyes, and he can hear his mother screaming, begging, over the roar of the flames but he can’t _do_ anything, can only stand there in horror until the screams finally stop.

He buried his parents the next day- or at least he’d tried. They were mostly ash by that point.

And now the fire is right in front of him and he isn’t _doing_ anything- he’s letting him _live-_

Jet feels sick. He turns away, unable to force himself to watch any longer, but he can still _hear_ the flames crackling. It’s the same sound that fills his dreams every night. 

_Oh, spirits, no… please, no…_

He has to get out of here, has to escape but he _can’t,_ there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide and the fire will find him and burn him because he’s letting it _live-_

_I have to fight him have to kill him have to kill him kill him kill him-_

But he can’t. His hands just won’t stop shaking.

Jet runs to the edge of the raft, as far away from the fire as he can get, and watches as his tears make tiny circles of ripples on the water.

_Why isn’t he dead yet? Why haven’t I killed him by now?_

_Why aren’t_ I?

***

Zuko didn’t know just how much he missed his bending until now.

He’s had to keep it concealed though all those long weeks of traveling through the Earth Kingdom, and it’s been burning within him like a sizzling ember, ready to catch. 

Now, letting his powers go fully, he feels… complete. Whole. 

“Stop it.”

The words barely reach Zuko’s ears over the roar of the flames but the break in them is clear.

He brings the fire down. _“What?”_

“I said, _stop it!”_ Jet’s voice sounds so different from how Zuko’s heard it before- ragged and raw and broken, the sound of someone completely, utterly shattered.

 _What’s- what’s he been through, that made him like_ this? 

“But- we need to do this so we can get rescued…” Zuko’s voice trails off as he catches sight of the look in Jet’s eyes.

They stare into space, seeing nothing and a thousand horrible things at the same time, twin dark voids of grief and guilt and rage and loneliness and the overwhelming _numbness_ that comes from someone who’s been fighting for far too long.

Zuko’s seen a lot of terrible things in his short life, but the look on Jet’s face now is right up there with Azula’s turtleduck experiments and his own eye when he first looked in the mirror.

“I know,” Jet rasps. “But I can’t stand it. You _bending_ like that…. I hate you, Li. I hate you.” Jet’s voice becomes stronger as he repeats his newly created mantra. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you…”

 _The entire_ universe _hates me,_ Zuko thinks. _Join the club._

“You think you’re the only one who’s suffered, Jet?” he says, his voice tight with anger- anger at Jet, at the world, at _himself_ for being the disgrace that he is in the first place. “You’re wrong. I’ve suffered too.” _But I deserved it._ “I’ve had to fight for everything, _just like you._ But at least _I_ don’t go around _hating_ people for _no reason_ other than their nationality.” His voice rises in tempo. “You hate me _just_ because I’m Fire Nation. For being _who I am._ You hate me and _I don’t even know why!”_ His last word is almost a shout. _“Why?!”_

“You want to know why? Oh, this should be good.” Jet chuckles, though there’s no humor in it at all. “Have you ever heard of the Rough Rhinos, Li?” 

“The Rough Rhinos- Uncle and I fought them once,” Zuko says. “Why?”

“They murdered my parents when I was eight,” Jet says matter-of-factly. 

Zuko rummages around his brain for an appropriate response. “That’s rough.”

“I can still remember it so clearly,” Jet continues, his voice threatening to crack on every word. “I was playing outside- it was dark out and I knew my mother would be mad at me for staying out so late… sh- she never…” Jet clamps one hand over his mouth. “I never got to say sorry…” 

_He’s hurting… what do I do?_

_It’s not like we’re friends or anything. We don’t even_ like _each other._

_But still…_

“I saw the flames through the trees,” Jet continues, an edge of madness in his voice. “I came running, but…” it was too late. The whole village was gone.” He chokes back a sob. “I buried them the next day- what was left of them, anyways. From that point on, I was on my own.” Jet rounds on Zuko, his eyes sparking with wrath. “So if you want to know why I hate you so much, _there it is._ People like _you_ destroyed my life. _You_ left me broken and bitter and alone. You’re… you’re a- a _monster,_ Li. You just happen to look human. And to think that I _cared_ about you once.”

 _"What?”_ Zuko shouts. _“I_ didn’t kill your parents. _I_ never did _anything_ to you! Why are you mad at _me?!”_

“Because you’re all alike. I’ve seen too much Fire Nation cruelty to think otherwise,” Jet says simply. “So… go do your bending or whatever. Or don’t. I still hate you either way.”

He curls up in a fetal position at the edge of their raft, his eyes still staring at nothing. 

Zuko stands at the opposite edge, looking out over their world of _blue,_ the only sound Jet’s muffled sobs.

He remembers hearing about the war as a child growing up in the Royal Palace, about how it was just their way of sharing the Fire Nation’s greatness with the world.

Now, Zuko glances back at Jet, still crumpled in a ball, so utterly shattered by the war- a war that _his_ nation caused. A war that, up until a few weeks ago, he’s wholeheartedly believed in. 

_Jet and Song and Lee and all those refugees on the ship- all those lives destroyed… was it really worth the price?_

_If this war is really our way of sharing our greatness with the world, then… why does it cause so much pain?_

_I… I’m sorry, Jet. If- no,_ when. _When I get home- no, what am I thinking? I_ can’t _make things better._

Zuko runs his fingers over his scar.

_I’ve tried._

_But if I could… I would._

***

The day wears on, blindingly bright and blue. Zuko and Jet speak little, partly out of trying to conserve their energy, partly out of there being nothing to say.

The ship doesn’t come. 

Zuko only notices that it’s gone around midday, when he glances at the horizon and finds that tantalizing dot missing. His heart makes like the ferry and sinks at the sight.

Some time later, the bloody sun sinks below the below the horizon. Neither of them trusts each other enough to sleep. 

***

The second day dawns, just as cloudless as the first. The silence of the lake is almost smothering in its stillness, hanging over their heads like one of the conspicuously absent thunderclouds.

Yet still, neither of them speaks. They can’t. 

The thirst and hunger, only minor annoyances on the first day, are monstrous on the second. To Zuko, it feels like his mouth has been filled with sand. 

At some point on the second day, he sees another ship. It might be Fire; it might be Earth. It doesn’t matter. He’s too weak to bend anymore.

 A second day passes.

***

The third day dawns crimson and magenta, with high clouds of spun gossamer catching the first light and turning it into a tapestry of red and gold, the colors of the Fire Nation. The colors of Zuko’s home.

Not that he cares about that, anymore. After three days without food, water or sleep, he really doesn’t care about _anything_ now.

 _This is how I’m gonna die, isn’t it,_ he thinks dully. _I never got a chance to reclaim my honor- never got a chance to go back._

_Don’t care now. Just… so tired…_

It’s then that Jet decides he’s had enough.

“Hey, Li,” he mumbles, and Zuko’s ears prick at the first voice he’s heard in days. “Water all ‘round us… why aren’t we drinking…?”

 _Don’t drink the saltwater it’ll make everything worse,_ he wants to say. But he can’t.

Through eyes glazed with fatigue, he watches as Jet tries to stand- and promptly collapses. Zuko isn’t sure if he’s dead or alive.

_He’s gone now… I can rest…_

_So tired…_

He knows nothing after that.


	6. Insanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new beginning.

_The world is burning._

_At least, that’s how it looks to Jet, standing there on the raft, watching the dying sun cast its rays over the water in brilliant hues of vermillion and crimson and gold. Li isn’t there. Jet doesn’t know where he is. Maybe he’s dead._

_Jet hopes he’s dead._

_As he stares at the sunset, the scene shifts. The flame-colored water becomes the fire of his burning village and then he’s seeing_ it _all over again, seeing his parents’ death for the hundredth, the_ thousandth _time…_

No. Not again. I _can’t_ see this again…

_He turns and runs, running until the world brightens on a forest on fire with the hues of fall._

_He knows this place. It’s the closest thing he has to a home._

_All the Freedom Fighters are there: Smellerbee and Longshot, the closest thing he has to a family, Sneers, his trademark expression on his face, Pipsqueak and The Duke, so mismatched but the best of friends nonetheless. Skillet. Roo. Xiao Si Wang._

_And Li is there too._

_Jet doesn’t know why that makes him so happy, but it does._

_“Come with me,” Li says. “There’s something I want to show you,” and then the world spins around and Jet finds himself on nearby ridge, looking out over a picturesque valley with a dam at one end and all Jet can think of is what happened the last time he was here-_

It’s not like that, _he tells himself._ They deserved it. I’m just playing by their rules. If they’re going to be ruthless, then I should be too.

_It feels like a lie._

_Then the dam bursts, sending a wall of watery death cascading through the village._

_The water hits him with a force like a thousand bricks, and before he can move, before he can even_ think, _he’s frozen to a tree._

 _Katara stands in front of him, still in her waterbending stance, her blue eyes brimming with tears. “You’re sick, Jet!” she says, her voice sparking with hurt. “You’re sick and I_ trusted _you!”_

You’re right, _he thinks._ This was wrong.

_A second figure enters the clearing, a flame cupped in his hand. Jet’s face tightens with rage at the sight._

_That is, until the figure steps fully out of the shadows. Jet studies his face: that pale skin, his lips set into a permanent frown- Jet remembers wondering just what it would take to get him to crack a smile, the short black hair, the massive burn scar that covers nearly half his face. The scar that drew the two of them together in the first place._

_And those eyes. Those beautiful, golden, undeniably_ Fire _eyes._

 _A cold, hard lump forms in Jet’s stomach at the sight._ I _trusted_ you. You betrayed me and I trusted you.

 _Li hurls the flame at him and the ice melts in seconds and he melts_ with _it, joining the impromptu brook as it flows downhill. He’s one with the water, he_ is _water; and the stream reaches a cliff and he spills over it into a river much wider than it should be._

_It’s filled with bodies._

_Men, women, children, infants, Earth, Fire; all lying drowned and battered and bloated,_ dead, _forming a macabre tide._

“You _did this,” Li’s voice says in his ear, the accusation loud and clear over the roar of the water. “Look around you. All these people- they died because of_ you. _Is that really what you want?”_

 _Before long the river reaches the lake and Jet watches the ferry burn and wonders why things always seem to_ burn _around him, watches as the refugees’ bodies spill out of the burning wreckage, gruesome, charred buoys that once were human._

_“Can you tell which ones are from the dam and which ones are from the ferry, Jet?” Li asks him._

_Jet looks at the death-filled waves, searching for the undeniable difference, because it’s_ there _, it_ has _to be there, because he’s the_ good guy _in this war and Li is the bad guy, the monster, the villain of a thousand children’s tales-_

_He’s doing it for a noble cause. There. That has to be it. He’s doing it for a noble cause and Li just wants to watch the whole world crumble into ash._

_Jet feels like laughing._

_Li’s voice in his ear is soft, almost a caress. “Where’s your noble cause now, Jet?”_

_Jet looks. He can’t see it._

_“We’re alike, you and I,“ Li says, with the air of someone who’s stating an undeniable truth._

_T_ _he water splashes in his face._

_It smells of death._

ooo

_The world is burning._

_Zuko isn’t quite sure why that troubles him; he’s a firebender, after all. His home is in the flames._

_But every time the Fire Prince turns his head to look at the brilliant inferno in front of him, something doesn’t look quite_ right.  _Either the color of the flames is ever so slightly off, or the shape of them looks forced and artificial, or- he can’t quite define the undeniable, deep sense of_ wrongness _that he feels whenever he looks at them._

No, _he thinks to himself._ I _am_ fire. I belong here. 

_The thought feels like a lie._

_And then he can’t think anymore_. _The flames are closing in._

 _And he’s_ burning. 

_The flames, so terribly, cruelly bright, close in on all sides. Zuko screams but there’s no one around to hear; there’s only the fire that’s stripping his flesh from his bones._

_He raises one arm and, his mouth dry with terror, watches as it crumbles to ash._

_The rest of his body goes with it until he’s nothing but gray dust on the hot wind. Zuko squeezes his eyes shut, not wanting to watch-_

Agni, please, help me…

_He opens his eyes to find that his world has changed._

_He’s in a spacious room with columns draped in red and gold and a throng of spectators lining the edges. There’s nothing in the center but himself- and one other figure-_

_He should have known. He_ always _ends up here, sooner or later._

Father, _he thinks as he kneels in despair, knowing that he’s only making a bigger failure out of himself by not fighting, but as hard as he tries, he can’t stop the tears for streaming down his face._ Father, I’m so sorry.

_He never closes his eyes, not even as the fireball fills his vision._

_Just before impact, the scene changes again._

_He’s on the ferry and the ferry is burning. And Jet’s there with him, anger burning in his eyes._ “You _did this,” he says, the accusation loud and clear over the roar of the flames._

 _He gestures to the burning deck- somehow filled with hundreds of people though Zuko could swear they hadn’t been there a moment before. “Look around you. All these people- they’ll drown because of_ you. _Is that really what you want?”_

_Zuko shakes his head. “No- I never…”_

_“Never what, little brother?” a voice hisses from behind him and Zuko watches in horror as a wraith curls out of the flames, solidifying until it’s taken Azula’s form. “Never wanted your honor back all along? You were content with being a disgrace after all?”_

_“You’re_ wrong,” _he says through gritted teeth._ Don’t antagonize her it’ll only make things worse. She’s stronger than you. Father always loved her more…

 _“Hit a little close to home, did I, Zuzu?” she purrs, winding her fiery body around him like a tempting snake. Zuko shudders at the touch. “As if you_ could. _We both know which one of us Father prefers. You know,” she says with an air of someone who has just made a great realization, “maybe_ your _banishment was decreed by the spirits themselves, to ensure that there would never be such a pathetic, weak, foolish Fire Lord as-“_

“Stop it!” _he cries, throwing a brilliant wave of fire all around. It doesn’t hit her, of course. She’s_ made _of fire._

 _She sidles over to Jet, who, to his credit doesn’t try to run, doesn’t even flinch as her burning body presses into him. “And who might you be, hmm?” she says, running a fiery finger under his chin. To Zuko she says, “Don’t tell me you’re consorting with Earth Kingdom peasants now?” She shakes her head._ “Honestly, _Zuzu, every time I think you can’t sink any lower, you just keep on surprising me.”_

 _“What… I… don’t…. argh…” Zuko splutters. “We’re not_ consorting! _We don’t even like each other!”_

 _Jet lunges for Azula, but she slips out of his grasp easily, unsurprising considering he was trying to grab a flame. “I don’t know who or what you are, but know this: I’ve been fighting to rid the world of people like_ you _from the time I was eight. I’ve seen the worst of Fire Nation cruelty many times over._ You don’t scare me.” 

_“You’re not afraid of me?” Her fiery form shrugs its shoulders. “Your mistake.”_

_Jet simply glares._

_"_ _Well, I guess I’ll just have to leave you and your little friend be, Zuzu,” she says with an air of forced disappointment. “Remember who you are, Zuzu. It wouldn’t do you well to forget.”_

_And with those words, the ferry sinks._

_Zuko can only watch as the water takes him and all he can think is that it’s so_ blue. 

_He doesn’t belong in the water. He shouldn’t be here._

No no no no no. I don’t want to die. Not like this. Please, Agni, no…

_Zuko tries to swim but he can’t. The water’s just too strong, surrounding him, dripping on his face…_

_Why is it dripping?_

Zuko opens his eyes to see fat raindrops falling from a slate-gray sky. 

 _Rain,_ he thinks dully, still half asleep. _Rain._

The cool raindrops on his baked lips, filling the back of his parched throat, are the sweetest things he has ever tasted. 

 _Rain._ The Fire Prince’s lips quirk up into a smile at the thought, a smile that splits his face and manages to reach his eyes. _We’re safe. We’re going to live._

Somehow, he’s survived.

“We are nothing alike!”

Zuko jumps just about a foot in the air at the sudden shout from his raftmate. _So he didn’t die after all. Great. Just great._

 _You know, for a second there I was happy. For the first time in_ years, Zuko thinks. _And then you_ _had to go and ruin it for me, Jet._

 _C’mon clouds, why did you have to go and give_ him _your water as well?_

Jet rolls over and sits up, his eyes still shadowed with sleep and his hair having achieved an almost unheard-of degree of wildness. “Hu… whuh… I…” His eyes narrow as he realizes just who he’s looking at. “Oh. You again.”

“I’m not happy to see you, either,” Zuko growls.

That’s when Jet sees the rain.

The expression on his face changes into something resembling a small child encountering a sweets shop for the first time as he tilts his head back to catch every single one of the precious, life-giving drops he can.

“Yes!” he shouts when he’s recovered enough to speak, pumping his fist into the air. “Jet: one, Fire Nation: _zero!”_

“They can’t hear you,” Zuko says automatically.

Jet shoots him a _look._ “You count.”

Zuko looks down at his feet. _I wish._ “Yeah… I guess I do,” he mumbles awkwardly. _Think of something else, quick!_ “Soo… we need a way to save this water. Got any ideas?”

Jet starts taking off his shirt.

“What are you _doing?”_ Zuko practically yelps.

“I’ve got a plan. Trust me on this.”

Jet undressing is a very complicated process, considering he wears something like three different shirts plus a whole lot of mismatched armor. Zuko just stands there awkwardly, part of him wondering what Jet’s plan could _possibly_ be, the other part of him thinking that maybe dying of thirst wouldn’t be so bad after all.

And then his eyes settle on Jet’s bare torso, and the Fire Prince forgets how to breathe. 

The rain trickles down his chest, glistening off his bronze skin and highlighting his sculpted, taut muscles crisscrossed with the pale lines of old scars, and Zuko wonders just how long it would take to run his fingers, his _lips,_ across all of them, across the other boy’s tiny, dark nipples and the line of dark hair under his navel, leading _down…_

Zuko feels his face flush- as well as some other parts of him a bit farther south.

 _What am I_ thinking? _I_ can’t _feel this. Not into him. Not into him. Not into him._

The memory of Jet’s lips, pressed with bruising force against his own, is certainly not helping anything.

_I think I’ll count every raindrop I can find. One, two, three, four…_

_Five million and four, five million and five…_

The expression on Jet’s face is something between a smirk and a grimace. “See something you like?” 

_“No.”_

Jet’s smirk only broadens, and Zuko has the distinct urge to wipe it off his face. “That’s not what your di-“

“Go _away,”_ Zuko hisses through clenched teeth.

“Would if I could, buuuut-” Jet waves his hand to indicate their chunk of driftwood, which can’t be more than ten feet across at the widest, and the open water beyond. “I’m somewhat out of options.” Jet walks up to Zuko and slings his arm around him, digging his fingers into the Fire Prince’s shoulders. It’s not a gentle squeeze like before. This time it’s angry, hard. “But hey, I totally understand. I _am_ pretty damn fine.”

“You’re pretty damn delusional,” Zuko mutters under his breath. 

“Though-“ Jet unhooks his arm from Zuko’s shoulders and promptly gives him a powerful shove that nearly sends him into the water- “don’t think for a second that you’re getting any from me. I still hate you and all your kind. The things you’ve done…  you make me _sick.”_

And with those words, Jet stomps to the other side of the raft.

Zuko watches the rain, trying his hardest _not_ to think about Jet.

 _One, I hate him. Two, he hates_ me. _Three, we’re on opposite sides of this war. Four, he’s a peasant and I’m a prince. Five, he’s a guy. Six, Father wouldn’t approve_ at all. _It’s not proper, it’s not honorable, it’s not_ right… _Agni damn it, why can’t I stop_ thinking _about him?_  

 _Well, part of it’s thinking about just how much I hate him, but_ still! 

Zuko sighs and rubs his forehead.

_Five million and six, seven, eight…_

ooo

_Li thinks I’m sexy. Huh._

Jet remembers a time when that’s everything he wanted, and he _still_ wants Li and now Li wants him too, only there’s so much space between them now, a space that’s filled with hatred and lies and painful truths and a hundred years filled with war and pain and smoke and blood like an open wound, a space that neither of them will ever be able to bridge. No matter how much they might want it.

Jet’s never been one to wish, to play pretend. In his experience, imagination ranks somewhere between money and rainbows in terms of usefulness: good for planning raids sometimes, time-wasting useless crap the rest of the time. He’s never been the one to stare out into space and fill his mind with countless _what-ifs._

Yet he does that now as he stands there, watching the raindrops splash in the palm of his hand and form a tiny river system as they flow down his wrist. _If he wasn’t Fire, if he was just another Earth Kingdom refugee with a scar and a grudge…_

Jet sucks in a breath, surprised at just how much he _wants_ his wish to be true. If Li weren’t Fire, Jet would be gradually tearing down the scarred boy’s defenses, brick by angry, bitter brick. If Li weren’t Fire, Jet would already be calculating how best to get Li into his bed and into his Freedom Fighters and into his life, even. And maybe… maybe he would have stayed. 

 _But he’s Fire. He’s a monster. And, now that you know he wants you, too, it’s even worse. You’ve_ seen _how ash-makers deal with lust._

A voice from the other end of the raft brings him back from that dark place. “So… _what,_ exactly was your plan?" 

 _A stupid one._ Jet walks over to his clothes lying in a puddle on the rough wood of the raft, ignoring the pain from his slowly healing leg wound. “See this?” He holds up his innermost layer. “It’s leather. Leather armor. I was thinking, if we could find some way to tie off the top…”

“We could make a water catch.” Li nods. “Great. Let’s get to it.”

“Hey, feel free to compliment me on my ingenuity anytime,” Jet says with an air of mock hurt. “Or, y’know, you can just go for my good looks and roguish charm. Whatever works,” he continues and wants to immediately smack himself in the face. _Why am I still pulling the cocky act? I don’t want to give him any ideas- don’t want him to start anything… anything I can’t control, that is._

Jet thinks that being in control of Li would be quite nice. _If he weren’t Fire, that is._

 _And besides, he’s just so damn_ fun _to make fun of,_ Jet thinks as he watches Li’s healthy cheek flush nearly as red as his scar.

“You’re an ass,” Li grumbles.

“What’s that? I have a nice ass?” _Here I go again._

The predictable smack is not quite as hard as it should be. “Look, do you want my help with this or not?” Li growls. “Because I’d be more than happy to let you die of thirst, if that’s what you want.”

The two of them work together in silence after that, Li trying not to think about Jet, Jet thinking about just what a stupid idea this was, taking off his armor with a firebender _right there,_ and both of them flinching every time their hands accidentally brush.

They manage to build the water catch. It works.

Jet feels like he should celebrate, that they have water now, but he doesn’t. There’s no one to celebrate with.

They sit on their raft, together yet still alone, the world silent save for the steady drumming of the rain.

The day turns into night. 

Unlike his dream, there is no dramatic sunset, no fiery drowning of the day. Instead, the dusk is marked by a steady, slow dimming of the gray sky, through silver to pewter to slate to charcoal to black.

Jet’s glad. He doesn’t know how much more fire he can take.

And with the night comes the cold.

Jet, newly shirtless, can’t help but shiver.

A light from the other side of their makeshift raft catches his eye, so bright against the near-total blackness of the night. Jet turns to see Li’s face illuminated from beneath by the fire he holds in his hands, throwing this scar into sharp relief and making his eyes an even brighter gold.

It’s fire.

Jet’s always known fire to be destruction. He’s never been quite able to accept that it’s warmth as well.

Li looks quite warm.

Jet swallows hard, fighting back memories of smoke and horribly burned flesh and an eight-year-old boy hearing his mother scream as she was burnt alive. 

And a dam blasted open, sending a titanic wall of water cascading over their valley, and Jet had watched with _happiness_ at the sight…

_We are nothing alike!_

Staring at the flames, at the miniature sun cupped in Li’s hands, casting its pool of light and warmth in the otherwise absolute, smothering blackness of the night, Jet doesn’t understand.

He’s spent years fighting fire. How can it be _warmth_ , how can it be _light,_ how can it be _life?_ It doesn’t make any sense. It’s just not right.

_He’s trying to get the attention of a ship again._

_Salvation through fire. What a cruel fucking joke._

But the rain is cold and the fire is hot, the night is dark but the fire is bright, and so Jet moves closer to Li anyways, warming his hands over the flame and trying to wish the dark memories away.

Their eyes meet, and all Jet can think of is just how _brilliant_ gold Li’s eyes are, flickering in the firelight, and Jet remembers his village burning, remembers the hatred being stoked in his heart, only now it’s muddled, his emotions all running together in the rain, hate and lust and guilt and something more, something _greater_ than all of them …

They’re so close. 

 _He’s Fire. He sank the ferry. He’s not like you, he’s_ nothing _like you, he_ can’t _be like you…_

_Don’t kiss him. It’ll burn._

“Why am I doing this?” Jet’s voice is hoarse and rough, shattering the moment like glass.

“What?” Li asks.

“This. Just…” Jet swallows hard. “Working with you. You’re heartless… a monster…” _Not like me._ “You… you sank the ferry. For no other reason than to watch those innocent people die. You’re _sick,_ Li.”

 _You’re sick, Jet! You’re sick and I_ trusted _you!_

_Shut up, Katara._

“What makes you think _I_ sunk the ferry?!” Li snaps, and the flames triple in height

Jet shoots him a look that’s half furious, half confused. “You’re Fire Nation. The Fire Nation sank the ferry. It’s just a logical conclusion.”

 _"Really?_ Then I’d hate to see your idea of irrational behavior.” Li’s voice is nearly as biting as the sea serpent. “Did you ever stop to wonder how I managed to contact the ship when I was with you when it attacked? Did you ever stop to think about _why_ I would sink a ship that I happened to _be on at the time?_ Did you ever wonder just _why_ I happened to be going to Ba Sing Se in the _first place?”_

 _Y’know, he sorta has a point,_ a small voice in the back of Jet’s mind says. Jet pushes the voice down.

“I… I haven’t even worked with the Fire Nation as a whole for _years,”_ Li continues, and there’s an unmistakable ring of a very painful truth in his voice that Jet doesn’t want to hear. “Why… why would someone like _me…"_

 _Even if he’s telling the truth, it doesn’t change anything. He’s still one of_ them. Jet shakes his head. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

Jet swallows hard. ”Convince me,” he says, almost as though he can’t believe his mouth is moving.

“How much do you want to know?”

“Everything.” 

“If you promise you’ll listen.”

Even after the rain, Jet’s mouth is still so dry. “I promise.”


	7. The Past Comes Back To Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth comes out.

“First of all,” Li begins, his voice heavy, “my name isn’t Li.”

Jet figures he probably should have guessed, that there were about a million Lis in the world so it would only be logical to choose it as a fake, but… to know that _everything_ was a lie…

Jet can’t quite figure out why it hurts, but it does.

“It’s Zuko.” Li rises to his feet as he says the words, his posture perfect straight and regal, his body taut with pride. _“Prince_ Zuko. Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, future ruler of the Fire Nation and heir to the Throne of the Eternal Flames.”

_No… no. He’s lying. He_ has _to be lying. It can’t be true._ But Jet can hear the unmistakable ring of pride in his voice, pride and certainty and truth.

 And it explains so _much_. _Spirits,_ it all makes sense now. Li’s aristocratic bearing- he carries himself like a royal. His elegant, cultured fighting style- the kind of fighting a noble would learn. His bad temper on the ferry- the attitude of a prince forced to live among commoners. His distaste at the food that had brought them together in the first place- of course _royalty_ would be accustomed to eating better.

Still in shock, Jet stares up at the prince of ash, of fire, of everything he hates, standing before him.

_Damn it, Jet, you sure are stupid._

Jet’s mouth twists into a scowl. “Fuck you,” he says, the accumulated force of half a life of hate behind the words.

That statement earns him Li’s foot in the side of his jaw, right on one of the still- healing wounds from their _first_ fight. 

Stars explode across his vision and the world goes bright with _pain,_ and the next thing he knows, he’s lying on the deck of their makeshift raft with Li’s foot on his neck. 

_This is one firebender I’ll especially enjoy killing._

“You _said_ you’d _listen!”_ Li hisses.

_“Fine,_ Your Royal Highness.” Twisting ordinary words into insults isn’t Jet’s strongest linguistic skill, but it’s pretty far up there. “Tell me your story. I sure can’t _wait_ to hear how the Fire Lord sent his favorite son-“ 

One hard punch to the face later, Jet’s mouth is filling with his own blood as he realizes that antagonizing the guy who currently has him pinned _might_ not have been one of his brightest ideas. 

“That’s… it’s not like that _at all.”_ Li’s- no, _Zuko’s-_ voice is oddly thick as he says the words. _“You don’t know me._ You don’t know what I’ve _been_ through, you don’t know just how hard I’ve _fought,_ how I’ve struggled. You don’t know what it’s like to be me, to remember your _disgrace,_ your pain, your _failure_ every time you look in the _mirror._ You don’t know what it’s _like,_ to know that your destiny always seems to be _just_ out of reach. _You_ don’t know what it feels like to wake up in the morning and remember the _entire world hates you._ So how about you _shut up_ and put your hate behind you for once and _listen_ like you _said you would!”_

Zuko’s shout is raw and bleeding and broken, every bit as scarred as his face. His shoulders shake, and Jet realizes he’s holding in a sob.

_It’s funny,_ he thinks. _They can feel things like this._

Jet’s seen firebenders cry before, many times, but it’s never felt quite like this.

Li- Zuko- _whatever-_ lets him up and stalks to the far corner of the raft, his back turned to Jet, blocking his view of the light in his hands.

The darkness is oppressive, smothering, as black as tar; and, with Zuko gone, Jet feels like he’s drowning in it, losing himself in the infinite _blackness._

_Why are you my light?_

“Aren’t you going to tell me?”

“Why _should_ I?” Li- Zuko- _dammit! -_ says, his voice weary, resigned. “It won’t change anything. You’ll still hate me.”

“Well…” Jet shrugs. “My opinion of you can’t possibly get any worse, so what’s left to lose?”

“Well, what if I don’t _want_ to tell you?” There. A challenge. Jet’s good with challenges. He’s not good with crying firebenders whom he’s trying not to kill.

“Then I guess I’ll still hate you. Your loss.” 

_“Fine,”_ Zuko snaps. “If you want to know, I’ll tell you.” 

Zuko turns toward Jet; the light from the fire illuminating his face, his body, his _scar,_ and all Jet can think of is that in another world, another life, he might’ve found the other boy beautiful, and Jet immediately wants to smack himself for having that thought, because he’s _not_ beautiful, he’s the prince of the nation that Jet’s spent his life trying to destroy.

They’re lost in a void; a deep well of blackness, and Zuko is burning so _bright_ against the dark, no moon or stars to steal his light.

Zuko’s the only thing that Jet can see.

“How’d you get your scar?” he asks, before the other boy has a chance to speak.

The Fire Prince’s face goes tight with pain, and, as he bows his head, Jet can almost see the weight of past shame pressing into his shoulders.

“I was disrespectful. I spoke out of turn. I acted dishonorably. I acted like a coward.” Zuko’s tone is flat, expressionless, as if there’s nothing left to bleed.

“Well… okay, but _how?”_ Jet asks. “What happened?”

Zuko squeezes his eyes shut, the expression on his face saying things that no words ever could. _Do I_ have _to tell you?_

He sucks in a breath, and the flames in his hands tremble slightly. “When I was thirteen, I was invited to a war meeting,” he begins, the words sounding as if each one was forcibly yanked from someplace deep inside him, leaving a raw, bleeding hole in their wake. “There was a general there…” He swallows audibly. “He… he was going to sacrifice a bunch of new troops, for no other reason than to create a diversion.”

_Sounds like a good strategy to me,_ Jet thinks to himself. _Not pleasant, but this is war._

_Of course,_ I _wouldn’t be fighting this war if not for them._ They _started it. Those bastards._

“So I told him it was wrong.”

Of all the things Jet was expecting to hear, those words aren’t even on the list. _“What?”_

“It was wrong! He was going to send them to their deaths for _no reason._ They were just new recruits- not much older than me. They’d pledged to serve the Fire Nation bravely, and…” His voice trails off. “Or did you mean, you didn’t expect me to ever do something good, because you think everyone from the Fire Nation is just irredeemably evil?”

Jet hopes that Zuko can’t tell that that’s pretty much exactly what he was thinking. “Go on.”

“I…” Zuko clamps one hand over his scar as if the wound is still new. “I was disrespectful. I had spoken out of turn. I’d insulted the general’s honor, and when you insult the honor of one of the Fire Lord’s generals in his own war room… you insult the Fire Lord himself.”

“He… my father… the Fire Lord…. he challenged me to an Agni Kai. A fire duel.” Zuko bites his lip, and Jet can tell just how hard he’s fighting to keep from crying. “I… my own father…. I couldn’t fight him. So now you know.”

_I was right. I was right all along._

_He’s been burned by the Fire Nation too, just like me._

Jet stares hard at Zuko, who somehow manages to be everything he hates and everything he’s ever wanted, all in one.

Slowly, carefully, as if he doesn’t trust his muscles not to betray him, he reaches out, wraps one hand around Zuko’s wrist and pulls his hand away from the scarred side of his face.

Jet’s eyes take in the scar: the way Zuko’s eye is forced into a permanent squint, his charred, melted shell of an ear, the way the flesh, even after so long, was a deep, angry _red,_ almost black in the firelight.

Jet’s seen enough burn wounds to know a bad one when he sees one.

“He did that to you?” 

Zuko’s reply is almost lost in the drumming of the rain. “Yes." 

_His own child…. I can’t believe it. I knew they were monsters… but not like_ this.

Jet feels the anger slithering inside him, squeezing his heart and twisting his stomach into knots. He’s dreamed of killing the Fire Lord ever since he was a boy, not only for himself, but also for all those who’d been charred, just like him.

_What am I_ thinking? _I… I can’t think this about him._

_He’s not some little lost orphan boy you found in the woods, Jet; he’s the_ Prince _of the damn_ Fire Nation. _He’s everything you’ve spent your life fighting against._

“I still don’t know how you came to be on an _Earth Kingdom_ ship heading to the _Earth Kingdom_ capital, though,” Jet says, the lightness of the words masking the sudden lump in his throat. 

“In that duel…” Zuko’s voice is a broken whisper. “By not facing my father, I brought disgrace upon not only myself, but the royal line. I lost my honor. My father… I was banished. And the only way I can ever come home and reclaim my birthright is if I can capture the Avatar.”

“So let me guess. You thought the Avatar might be going to Ba Sing Se, probably to find an earthbending master, you got ferry tickets for yourself and your uncle- General Iroh, right? The Dragon of the West? The man who tried to burn Ba Sing Se to the ground?” 

Zuko nods.

“So _that’s_ what he meant when he was talking about how he’d seen the city before… and all that stuff about second chances… Wow.” Jet groans and rubs his forehead. “Pinch me.”

“What?”

“None of this is real. I’m in some sort of crazy, fucked-up dream world where the Dragon of the West is just a tea-crazed, kooky old man and this guy I fell for on the ferry just _happens_ to be the banished crown prince of the damn _Fire Nation._ I mean, what are the chances of that?”

Zuko pulls away from Jet like he’s just been shocked, his good eye going wide, and only then does Jet realize that he’s still holding Zuko’s hand. _“What?”_

Jet’s only answer is to pull the other boy into his arms, fingers twining into his short black hair, and crush their lips together with the force of half a life of hate.

The kiss is more of a battle for dominance than a kiss; battered lips and battered lives and broken souls crashing together like storm-tossed waves on a rocky shore. Jet can feel blood in his mouth from one of their countless unhealed wounds and he wonders whose it is, and as his tongue enters Zuko’s mouth it hits the space left by his missing tooth. A flash of pain and the pain makes _sense._

Because why shouldn’t kissing a firebender hurt?

After a time that’s somehow both far too short and far too long, Jet lets go of Zuko and watches the other boy catch his breath. The flames in his hands are leaping erratically, sending up little fountains of steam in the rain.

“There. Does _that_ answer your question?” Jet growls, trying to look anywhere _but_ the flames. “Pick your jaw up off the floor, Li. You look like a fish.”

“My _name_ is _Zuko!”_ he yells, more out of finding something to argue about rather than any actual indignation.

Jet shrugs. “Right. You have anything _else_ you want to tell me?”

Almost as soon as he asks, he regrets the question. Because Zuko does. And it turns out that the scarred prince can be quite loquacious when it comes to talking about himself.

Jet sees the glimmer in Zuko’s eyes as he talks about his mother, every word dripping with an ache that Jet knows all too well. _No. We’re not alike._ He feels somehow both better and worse as Zuko tells of his quest to capture the Avatar- _he’s only a kid. Little too naïve, but a good kid. Sure as hell doesn’t deserve to be captured- can’t Zuko_ see _what would happen?_ His fists tighten into balls at the thought.

And then Zuko’s words stop him short. “Wait- _you_ were the Blue Spirit? _You_ rescued the Avatar from Zhao? That was _you?”_

Zuko scratches the back of his head, his eyes unable to meet Jet’s gaze. “Well, uh, I wouldn’t call it _rescued_ , but-”

Jet remembers walking through an Earth Kingdom town painted with dust, the fresh guilt of the dam just starting to press into his shoulders. He remembers seeing the blue-masked figure on the wanted poster, remembers reading the blurb and telling Smellerbee and Longshot _just_ how much balls this person had, adding at the end that they’d found a new honorary Freedom Fighter.

And now he’s _here._

He’s here and he’s the Fire Prince, but still somehow bitter and scarred. And they’ve survived a shipwreck and serpents and thirst together, and Jet still has the anger burning in his heart, but now his world’s twisted upside down and he doesn’t know if the scarred boy who shares his twisted world is where it _should_ go, anymore. 

And the thing that scares Jet the most is that he doesn’t know if he _wants_ to hate him.

“So what happened after that?”

Zuko tells him how he’d nearly caught the Avatar at the North Pole, only to have the kid turn around and rescue _him. Yeah. That kid is_ really _naïve. Pretty stupid, too._ Hew listens as Zuko tells him how he and his uncle had been declared traitors- _Well. I guess that explains it,_ Jet thinks sourly. _Spirits,_ why _can’t he be someone like Azula? Someone I can hate with a clear conscience? Why does he have to make… things so_ hard _for me?_

“And then Uncle said we should go to Ba Sing Se and see if we couldn’t start a new life there, and then I met you… and, well, you know the rest,” Zuko finishes, the bitterness weighing his words all making sense now.

It takes a long time for Jet to find his voice again.

“We should probably get some sleep,” Jet says. He gets up and walks a few steps away from Zuko, where he stretches out on the boards of the raft, trying to ignore the splintered wood digging into his back.

His eyes never leave the boy he can’t quite bring himself to hate.

ooo 

Zuko feels almost as if he’s been torn open, spilling out his shame on the raft where everyone can see.

_Did… did he really mean what he said earlier- about him… falling for me?_

_No. He couldn’t have meant it. It’s not like I’m exactly handsome or anything-_ Zuko runs his fingers over his scar. He’d gotten used to the stares over the years, but when Jet stared at it, he wasn’t repulsed. Far from it.

It’s almost… exhilarating, the way Jet looked at him. Like a shot of cactus juice, making his head spin and lights flash before his eyes and he feels somehow like he’s falling and floating all at once.

Zuko knows well what cactus juice does, and he knows he shouldn’t chase a phantom, a ghost of a life that isn’t his.

_I’m not likable, I’m not charismatic, I’m not good-looking, I never even_ wanted _to make friends… Why would he fall for me? It doesn’t make any sense._

_But he kissed me. Twice. If that’s not falling, I don’t know what is._

His heart beats the slightest bit faster at the thought, at the memory of Jet’s lips, so _hard_ against his own…

_Shut up, you stupid brain._

_No. I can’t want him. I_ don’t.

_We don’t even like each other. I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me._

Zuko tries to ignore the way Jet looked at him as he told his story- there was still hatred there, yes, but also confusion, as if Zuko had suddenly turned into a three-headed platypusbear from the Spirit World. And… there’d been something _more_ in his eyes, something that Zuko can’t quite name. Something that he’s not sure he _wants_ to name.

_Stupid Jet and his stupid ways of getting people to like him._

Zuko sighs and flops down on the raft, on his back with his hands behind his head. _It’s not like I’m in love with him or anything. This was just a one-time thing. I’m stronger than this. I don’t care about him whatsoever. I_ won’t. 

Zuko turns his head to glance at the other boy, lying sprawled on the deck, his tanned chest rising and falling with the deep, even breaths of someone who’s, very deliberately, trying to sleep.

There can’t be more than ten feet between them, but it might as well be an ocean.

_Even if he_ did _fall for me,_ Zuko thinks, _it doesn’t matter._

Because Jet fell for an Earth Kingdom boy named Li who never even existed.

He might as well have fallen for the Blue Spirit.

There was never anything but hatred between them.

As he drifts off to sleep, Zuko wonders why that thought isn’t as comforting as it should be.


	8. Drown In You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the storm.

_“You want this, don’t you?” Jet’s voice is hot and silky and honey in his ear, and Zuko only nods. He doesn’t trust his voice enough to speak._

_Jet’s lips touch Zuko’s neck in a flurry of breathless kisses, sending an exquisite shiver racing through his body. Almost involuntarily, he grinds his hips against Jet’s, and it just feels so_ good… _he needs_ more… 

_“Need… need you, Jet… touch me…” The words spill from his lips, a river heavy with rain._

_Jet’s fingers trace a nonexistent lace on Zuko’s chest, his stomach, his hips._ Too _intricate, in Zuko’s opinion. Jet’s taking his sweet time with this._

_“Just… hurry up!” Zuko snaps, his voice breathless and panting._

_“You know,” Jet’s smile is soft and wet and hazy with desire, “I’ve been fighting the Fire Nation for a while, but I never dreamed I’d get the chance to steal the crown jewels.”_

_Zuko’s reply is somewhere between a laugh and a moan. “Jet…”_

_And then Jet touches him, at_ last, _and he can’t think, he can barely even_ breathe, _because it feels_ so _damn_ good… spirits, _it feels good_

_He’s losing himself. He’s losing himself in this Earth Kingdom boy, drowning in his touch and his eyes and the sheen of sweat on his skin._

_And the worst part is, he doesn’t even mind._

ooo

Zuko’s eyes crack open to see a hazy glow coming from the east, turning the clouds a watercolor of indigo and pink and orange and gold. 

_Shit._

The Fire Prince wishes, for just once in his life, he could’ve slept past sunrise. 

_I can’t believe this. I’m falling for him. I’m actually_ falling _for him._

Zuko’s face goes as scarlet as the sunrise as he turns his head to look at Jet, still sleeping peacefully, the first light of dawn painting beautiful shadows on his body, his chest rising and falling in deep, even breaths. In sleep, he’s at last free of the hatred that pulls his face into tight, angry lines and writes his every waking moment. In sleep, Jet can finally heal.

With Jet asleep, the walls that divide the two lonely, charred outcasts seem that much more thin.

With Jet asleep, Zuko can pretend.

_In another life, another world- if I hadn’t been born the Prince… could we have… had something?_

Zuko wants to dismiss the idea as preposterous, to write that thought- to write _Jet_ out of his life and throw him away just like ash on the wind, because Earth Kingdom peasants have no place haunting the dreams of Fire Nation royalty.

But still, he can’t help but wonder. If Jet hadn’t known his secret so soon, if the still knew him as just an Earth Kingdom boy named Li, just another refugee, how long would he have been able to resist Jet? Would he have somehow kept his guard up, or would he have eventually succumbed and found something to hold onto in a place he would never belong?

Could he have ever really been Li?

_You spend three years trying to tell me we should just forget about the Avatar and try and settle down somewhere in the Earth Kingdom, Uncle, and then you finally convince me… and look who I meet._

_Uncle Iroh, what should I do? I_ feel… _something for him- it’s not like I_ want _to feel this, but it’s there-_ Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose- _and I know he feels the same way._

_But we hate each other. Or at least I_ think _we do…_

_I don’t know. I’ve always been so certain, so sure of my destiny, my_ purpose, _but now… I just don’t know anymore._

“Agni,” he murmurs to the rising sun, “what should I _do?”_

No answer.

Zuko folds his arms over his chest and turns away with a long sigh. _What’s the use of spirits if they’re never there when you need them?_

A soft whimper from behind him snaps him out of his reverie. Zuko turns his head to see Jet, his face twisted into a mask of pain and hurt.

It’s not _right._ Zuko has no idea why he cares, but he knows that it’s just not _right._

“Don’t… don’t _leave_ me…” Jet’s voice is broken and small and _desperate,_ so different that the cocky image he normally projects, and something inside Zuko breaks along with it.

_They hate us._

_And maybe… maybe we deserve it._

_“Mommy!”_ Jet cries, his arms flailing, reaching for something that’s not quite there. Zuko swallows around the sudden, hard lump in his throat. _I lost my mother too._

_Maybe we’re more alike than we think._

In that same moment, the rising sun bursts through the clouds, turning the surface of the lake into sparkling waves of liquid light.

_I don’t want him to hate me,_ Zuko thinks in the newborn light of day.

The thought makes no sense.

_He’s a peasant. I’m a prince. We’re on opposite sides of this war- spirits, why do I_ care? 

And, in the end, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know just _what_ fit of insanity compels him to walk over to Jet and run his fingers through his messy brown hair, to clasp the other boy’s hands in his own and give them a gentle squeeze.

And there they stay, the prince and the peasant, so different yet so alike, thrown into this lonely world together, their only companions the sea and the sky and the first light of a new day.

ooo

_The flames burn his skin, bright and terrible and hot, and part of Jet had hoped that this night would be different, but it’s_ not _and the flames are_ bright _and he’s eight years old again, seeing his village burn for what must be the hundredth time. It still somehow hurts._

_Some wounds never heal, Jet thinks. Some wounds only ever scar over, a hard shell masking the still-raw hurt beneath, angry and bleeding and throbbing, just_ waiting _for the chance to reopen and bleed out._

Scars…

_T_ _he firebending scum in front of him turns to look at Jet and smiles that horrible smile, again and again. Only it’s not him._

_This time it’s Zuko._

ooo 

Jet’s eyes shoot open to see Zuko standing there and a touch registers as his mind fights off the last glimmer of sleep.

Zuko- Fire Nation- ash-making _scum-_ he’s touching him. Is _holding his hand._

Jet’s vision goes white with rage. 

He _needs_ this fight.

He’s barely even aware of the punch he throws. 

ooo

_Damn it._

Jet’s fist hits him right in the scar and the pain barely even registers, and Zuko can remember a time when he used to _feel_ things there, but that’s gone.

Because he tried to help.

_Thought I knew better than this. I tried to comfort him, and now look. We’re fighting again._

_I shouldn’t have tried to get close. Things won’t change. We still hate each other. I’m still the Prince._

Zuko grabs Jet’s wrist and pins him to the boards of the raft with his other hand. “What the hell do you think you’re _doing?!”_

Jet’s only answer is the hate in his eyes. 

“I _thought_ we’d agreed to stop _fighting!_ I thought we’d agreed to work _together_ to get out of this mess, but _then_ you up and _attack_ me!” Zuko yells, trying valiantly not to think about just how _close_ they are or the fact that he’s currently straddling Jet’s hips-

 It’s not working.

Jet’s expression changes into something resembling a smirk. “Enjoying yourself?”

_“No,”_ Zuko replies, the words filed into a point.

“You know,” Jet says, the words dripping with something Zuko doesn’t quite want to name, “that’d be a lot more convincing if you’d just _let me up,_ ‘cause from the way things _stand_ -“

_I’m about three seconds away from wiping that smile off your face right now._ “Shut _up.”_

But he lets Jet up anyway, against all his better judgment. But then, he’s gone against his better judgment a _lot_ recently. 

His eyes never leave the other boy as he sits up. He’s not sure why.

And then their eyes meet, twin mirrors of gold and rusted copper, and the blood is pounding in Zuko’s ears as he sees the look in Jet’s eyes.

There’s still hatred there, true- but it’s fading, draining away like morning dew. 

Zuko isn’t sure whether to feel relieved or terrified or both.

And then the hard lines of Jet’s face return and the spell is broken and a wandering dark cloud crosses the sun, throwing their lonely world into shadows.

And the world makes sense.

A world where the Prince of the Fire Nation doesn’t let himself fall after a simple Earth Kingdom peasant, a world of honor and duty just out of reach 

A world that’s always hated him.

_I don’t care if I make the rest of the world my enemy…_

Zuko turns to face the western sky, turning his back on Jet and the cloud-shrouded sun.

_…I’ll come back. I_ will _regain my honor. Someday. Somehow. I_ will.

 

ooo

_I’m sorry._

The words linger on Jet’s lips, not quite ready to take flight. The shape of the letters of his tongue is so different, so _foreign-_

Jet’s never been very big on apologies- he’s always thought that it was just easier to just not  _do_ whatever you needed to say sorry for, and two little words never erased a lifetime of hurt anyway. He’s tried.

But the words are there, hanging on his lips, just _waiting_ for their chance to come to life- and the worst part is not that they’re there, it’s that he wants to say them to a _firebender._

He wants to _apologize_ to one of the monsters he’s spent half his life fighting, to the crown prince of the nation who’s made his life a living hell.

_What the hell am I_ thinking?! _I’m going insane._

_If anything,_ he  _should be the one apologizing to_ me.

_Well, okay, he already did… and he saved my life a couple times, too… and he was here when I woke up…_

Jet’s face goes tight as a new, awful realization hits. _He must’ve been trying to_ comfort _me, must’ve seen that I was having a nightmare… seriously. The only person in the world who knows about my dreams and it’s the fucking_ Fire Prince.

_I can’t believe this._

He feels like smashing things, of breaking things or people and watching them bleed out on the ground. _All that time I spent drilling the kids to never show fear, never show weakness… and_ now _look._

_Why does he have to exist?!_ Jet feels like shouting. 

The rage is back now, twisting his heart and mind into strange shapes, and Jet’s glad. Rage is easy. All you have to do is _hurt_ whatever you’re angry at and then it’s gone, it’s over. Or at least it should be.

Rage is easy. Rage is safe. Rage is familiar.

Whatever he feels toward Zuko is none of those things.

Hunger is easy, too, and Jet’s stomach wastes no time in reminding him that he hasn’t eaten in nearly four days.

He flops down on the deck, his arms propping up his head. “Sooo…. we need some food. Got any ideas?" 

ooo

Zuko’s hunger, manageable until now, surges back with a vengeance, sending tremors through his body and sapping the life from his bones like a ghoul from a children’s tale.

_Food sounds nice._

He’d thought his days of wandering through the earth kingdom had ben hard: well, they were nothing like this. He’s never experienced anything like _this_ before, where it’s not exactly hunger, but an awful, gray-white _hollowness_ threatening to eat him alive. He feels as if he’s turned to smoke, a wraith that haunts the silent sea.

_I shouldn’t be here. This is no way for a prince to live._

“Food sounds great,” he mumbles under his breath. “You got any ideas?" 

“I don’t know, pray. Or something.”

“Wow, Jet, you’re a big help.” Zuko casts his gaze to the sky and its attendant retinue of clouds, gray, gold, purple, white in the early morning sun. A flock of birds swoops into view, their wings carving tiny white M’s into the sky, and Zuko takes some comfort in the fact that he’s not alone. That other creatures shared their space, their world of too much _blue,_ of lake and sky and the cramped confines of the raft. 

The last time he’s seen a bird…. 

Zuko supposes the roast ducks they’d stolen on the ferry don’t count.

_It was good, not as good as the stuff back home, but good. The orange sauce…_

His mouth waters. 

_Well, at this point I’d probably take the piles of crap they were handing out to the refugees. It’s probably better than starving._

The flock of birds fly overhead, closer now, so close that Zuko feels almost as if he could reach out and touch them.

_Roast duck…_

_That’s_ it!

Zuko raises his hands.

And twin streams of fire shoot from his hands, heading straight for the birds.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Zuko whirls around to see Jet glaring at him. Again.

_Seriously, what is his_ problem?

“Saving us from dying of starvation, what does it look like?” Zuko snaps.

“What do you mean…” His voice trails off as he catches sight of the birds overhead, and Zuko can almost _see_ the clarity dawning on his face. “Oh.”

He points up at the sky, where the birds wheel about in a flurry of rapid squawks. “Well, looks like you missed.”

Zuko’s hands ball up into fists at the sight. _Oh,_ come on!

“Got any _better_ ideas, Your Royal Highness?”

Zuko shoots Jet a withering glare. “Don’t _call_ me that. And I’ll get it right this time." 

_I’ll get everything right. I’ll regain my honor, I’ll be the son my father wants me to be…_

_I’ll get it right._

ooo

Jet had never suspected that the crown prince of the Fire Nation would be so bad at firebending that he couldn’t even shoot down a single seabird, but life just keeps on surprising him.

Zuko fires again. 

Another miss.

Jet has to stifle a laugh as he watches the birds give the fireballs a very wide berth. "Wow. You seriously suck. Too bad I didn’t have to fight more people like you in the forest; more of the Freedom Fighters might still be alive then.”

“It’s not _my_ fault that they’re small and high up and moving around,” Zuko complains.

“Then adjust your aim, Your Majesty.”

“I _told_ you to stop _calling_ me that!”

“No, you asked me to stop calling you Your _Highness._ I called you Your _Majesty._ Totally different,” Jet says with a grin.

“Maybe you should just stop talking altogether,” Zuko grumbles, raising his hands for another attempt.

Which has the same spectacular results as the first.

“Okay, now you’re getting emotional and that’s throwing off your aim. _Relax,”_ Jet offers.

“You know, maybe if _you’d_ stop _talking_ to me I could actually _concentrate_ and we could maybe _not starve!”_ Zuko practically yells. “And what do you know about firebending anyway?”

Jet shrugs. “Does killing a lot of you guys count?”

In lieu of a response, Zuko simply kicks him in the thigh and stomps to the other side of the raft in a huff, his footsteps pounding on the deck.

Jet glares at him. “Well, thanks.”

A silence descends over the raft, broken only by the steady _whoosh_ of Zuko’s flames. It’s a constant reminder of just _who_ he’s letting live.

_I’ve dreamed of getting close enough to kill one of the royal family for years… and_ now _look. I finally meet their prince and, instead of taking revenge like I_ should… _I let him_ live.

_Wait, scratch that, I make out with him. Twice._

_Mom… Dad… I’m sorry._

_I’ve spent my life trying to avenge your deaths, I have the_ perfect _opportunity- and I don’t._

Then again, it’s not like he’s only killed soldiers, before- or strictly Fire Nation citizens, for that matter.

_If you could see me now… would you be proud of me?_

“Got one." 

Jet turns his head to see Zuko- and behind him a seabird with singed feathers plummeting from the sky.

Jet watches as their hoped-for dinner falls into the water with an aggravating _splash,_ landing some fifty feet away from their piece of driftwood. 

“Depends on your definition of ‘got’,” he replies smugly.

Zuko’s face flops from disappointment, to frustration, before finally settling on steely determination as he dives in the water in hopes of his meal.

And, for the first time, Jet is truly alone.

_I should hate him._

_I_ do _hate him._

_It’s not like he’s a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but…_

Being alone doesn’t feel quite as good as Jet would like. 

_Why couldn't he have just been Li?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, my Ereannie is showing.


	9. Cuts Deep

The water is cool and salty on his tongue and there’s so much _blue,_ all different shades, from the sun-kissed aquamarine of the upper layers, where the light forms great, regal columns in the water, to the midnight yawning below him.

Other colors, too, find purchase in this world beneath the waves; the bright green of algae, the black of a snail hidden in the weeds, flashes of silver and orange and red and gold from the fishes that swam alongside him.

 _Wow. There’s a whole different world down here,_ Zuko thinks as he watches a yellow, ribbon-shaped fish eat its fill of algae. _I’ve spent years at sea, and I never even knew._

He raises his head towards his target: the downed, struggling seabird bobbing on the waves. _Focus._

That’s when a big, sleek gray fish with approximately as many teeth as Mai has knives appears. And _bites._

The bird’s blood leaves a billowing storm of red, so bright against the blue.

Zuko feels like yelling a long list of words that weren’t quite appropriate for royalty to use. He probably _would_ have, if not for the fact that yelling underwater brought its own set of difficulties with it.

 _Oh, you did_ not _just do that._

 _I worked_ damn _hard on catching that fish. You_ can’t have it.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the fish bites again. Zuko can only watch as the bird’s meat-filled other wing disappears.

Zuko kicks his way over to the bird and its attendant retinue of scavengers, and, in another bad decision in a lifetime full of them, punches the errant fish.

Another tendril of red joints the current.

And then the pain hits and Zuko realizes that the blood was _his._

Really? Zuko thinks, cradling his split knuckles. _Can’t I just have_ something go right for me _just_ once?! Is that too much to ask?!

He yanks what remains of the bird away from the fish and swims back to the raft with his prize.

Zuko scrambles back onto the raft, made significantly harder by the fact that he has zero useable hands. After his second undignified fall into the water, he looks up to see Jet, his shoulders shaking.

Jet’s _laughing_ at him.

“Cut it out!” Zuko calls.

“Sorry, “ Jet says, the tone of his voice making it clear that he wasn’t sorry at all. “I just never thought that the crown prince of the Fire Nation would be so…”

Zuko glares at him over the lip of their raft. “So- what?”

“Socially awkward. Hard to please. Dorky. Irritable. Cute when angry.”

Zuko figures that if he had a coin every time he felt like punching Jet in that annoying little smirk of his, he’d probably be able to just _buy_ his honor back.

“Do you want this bird or not?” he snaps.

Jet walks over to him and hauls him roughly onto the raft, and the twin shocks of _he’s touching me_ and _he’s actually_ helping _me_ are nearly enough to make Zuko lose his grip on the bird.

“Um... thanks,” he manages to say.

“I… just don’t want you to die, seeing as you’re my best chance of getting out of this mess, after all,” Jet says with a shrug. He glances at Zuko’s hands, one holding what’s left of the bird and the other covered in blood. “What happened?”

“A fish got it."

Jet‘s gaze is sharp with anger- whether at him for not bringing back the whole bird or anger at him for… everything else, really, Zuko can’t tell.

Their eyes meet, two broken souls with a lifetime of hate between them, and Zuko wonders why he can’t stop his pulse from hammering in his ears.

_I can’t do this. I can’t fall for him._

Zuko’s never been one to admit defeat, but even he can tell that he’s losing.

“Here,” he says gruffly, pressing what remains of the bird into Jet’s hands, closing the other boy’s fingers around the meat. “Take it.” _We’re on opposite sides of this war and nothing will ever change that. But… you’ve suffered a lot, and it’s because of_ my _people. It’s the least I can do._

_I know you’ll probably still hate me- I don’t care. I shouldn’t want to help you like this- it’s not what Father would want- but I do._

Jet throws his gift down to the boards of the raft. “I don’t want it.”

There is nothing more to say after that.

ooo

Jet smells the roasting flesh and is on his feet in an instant, adrenaline lightning in his veins. He _knows_ that smell.

He smelled it when he watched his village burn, smelled it a thousand times since- a little boy named Shu who died three days after his village burned without ever waking up, his face a melted mask. A sobbing woman who’d begged Jet and the Freedom Fighters to save her baby, not knowing there was nothing left to save. A girl, Maylin, who’d been one of his best swordswoman, up until the day they’d had to cut her charred, useless arm off. The blood had sprayed everywhere.

The familiar rage tightens in his chest and pulls his lips into a scowl. How could he _ever_ have imagined that he and Zuko could have had a bond? How could he _not_ hate him?

Jet whips his head around to see Zuko, a flame cupped in his injured hand, his other holding the bird inches above the fire. He’s _cooking._

 _It’s just Zuko._ The thought springs into his mind, unbidden. Jet thinks it’s ridiculous, because there is no “just Zuko”; he was the Fire Prince. The blood of Maylin and Shu and Jet’s parents and countless others stains his hands crimson, and all the water around them couldn’t wash the Fire Nation’s sins away.

And yet…

_If he was going to kill me, he would have done so already._

_He saved my life-_ twice- _he was here when I woke up, he gave me the bird…._

 _He_ cares _about me._

It’s such an alien feeling to Jet, this sensation of _care._ Ever since his parents had died, _he’d_ been the one to comfort the others when they woke screaming from the horrors of their dreams, he’d been the one to eat last when food was low.

And now Zuko is here, and he’s the Fire Prince, and he’s trying to _help_ him.

Jet balls his hands into fists. _I don’t need your charity, Zuko._

_And why do you care? You should want me dead. That’s what firebenders do._

“Why?” he says, his voice almost swallowed by the sea.

“What?”

“Why did you give me the bird? Why did you reach for me? Why do you _care about me?!”_ Jet shouts.

 _“I don’t know!_ I don’t know _why_ I keep trying to _help_ you when all you do is throw it back in my _face!”_ Zuko yells. “ _Every_ time I try and help someone, it always just _blows_ up in my face, so if you’ve got an answer for me, I’d sure like to know!”

 _You’re Fire,_ Jet wants to say. But the words die on his mouth. “We need more food,” he says instead, his eyes scanning the raft for something, _anything_ he could use. “We can’t live off your birds alone.”

_There!_

He walks over to where his red vest lays in a crumpled heap on the raft. _If we could unravel this somehow…_

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the rust-caked nail that Zuko had once tried to stab him to death with. It feels so long ago now.

_Awesome. Got a plan._

“Hey-“ Jet swallows hard. “ _Zuko_ , I got an idea about how we could make ourselves some fishing gear.” He holds up his shirt. “We could tear this up and make a line out of it, and then use this for a hook. You in or out?” 

Zuko nods and Jet rips the fabric on the nail. The two of them begin their work, weaving and knotting the loose threads into a sizable cord, until, at last, they have a line.

Jet ties the nail onto the end. “You still got some of the meat?” 

Zuko doesn’t quite meet his eyes as he hands him what’s left of the bird.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Jet says as he pushes the meat onto the end of the hook and watches it fall into the water with a _plop._ He ties the other end to an outcropping piece of wood, and they have their line.

Zuko gives their makeshift fishing rod a sideways glance. “Think it’ll hold?”

“Let’s not talk about what we’ll do if it doesn’t,” Jet says grimly.

Silence descends over their raft once more, broken only by the gentle lapping of the waves.

“An Earth Kingdom town,” Zuko says at last, his voice small against the sky.

“What?”

”When I was on the run from the Fire Nation a few weeks ago,” Zuko says heavily, “I stayed in this little Earth Kingdom town, with this family. They had a son- a little boy named Li.” 

 _Wondering where you picked up the name,_ Jet thinks to himself. _Nobody worth their salt uses it as an alias. Way too common._

“His older brother was killed in the war…” Zuko says, and Jet has the distinct feeling that he’s holding back more of the story. “And there were these corrupt soldiers bullying the townspeople. So I tried to help. It didn’t work.”

“They learned who you were,” Jet says, his voice blank.

“They turned me out.” Zuko runs his hand over his scar. “I tried to help them, and they turned me out.”

“Good for them.”

_“What?!”_

“Why _should_ they trust you?” Jet says with a sneer. “You’re Fire Nation, you’re their _Prince._ You destroyed their _lives._ They have every reason to hate you, and yet… I can’t believe you. _You_ sit here and whine about how much you life sucks and your _precious daddy_ -“ Jet’s fingers make air quotes at the words- “doesn’t love you and how _no one_ in the _entire world_ appreciates you, while the rest of the world suffers and bleeds and dies. Because of _you._ So if you’re wondering why no one appreciates your kindness, well, it’s not enough. Your people have already burned half the world down.”

Zuko’s reply sounds as if the words themselves are choking him. “I _know.”_

“Then why don’t you _do_ something about it, instead of your little half-assed attempts at sympathy?” 

Zuko lets out a long, slow sigh. “It’s not that simple.”

Jet rolls his eyes. “So then you really _don’t_ care about me, do you?” _Please let it be true._

“I do.”

It takes what seems like an eternity for Jet to find his voice. _“Why?!”_

Zuko’s voice is bitter, that strange mix of anger and weariness that comes from a lifetime of abuse. “Because, with you, for the first time in years, I felt like I _belonged._ And then… things happened, and then I found out what happened to you, and… you didn’t deserve that.”

“Wow, no shit.”

“So I _tried_ to make things better for you, but _you_ just want to hate me! And somehow, I _still_ care about you and there are a million reasons why I shouldn’t and- _”_

“I cared about you once, too,” Jet says, his voice hard and bitter. “But then you up and turned into one of _them,_ and you _lied_ to me… about who you were. And every time I look at you, I can see my village burning, and I…”             Jet walks over to the other boy, almost as if pulled by magnets. “ _Why_ couldn’t you have just been Li!?”

Zuko doesn’t answer, simply taking Jet’s hands into his own, and Jet can feel the other boy’s blood, so slick against his own palm-

It’s an awful lot of blood.

Jet swallows hard.

_Well, he’s already helped me more than enough._

_Can’t let a_ firebender _get the upper hand in good deeds than me, after all._

“Your hand,” he says, his voice hoarse and cracked.

Zuko narrows his eyes. “Yeah? What about it?”

Jet reaches around, his hands stained with the other boy’s blood, and grabs one of the scraps from his vest. “Here,” he says, trying to _force_ that gruff, indifferent edge into his voice. “Let me see.”

Zuko jerks away from him. “I don’t need your charity, Jet.”

Jet looks away from him, out into that distant expanse of blue. “Course you don’t. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“And… since when do you _care_ about what happens to me? You _hate_ me, last I checked.” There’s anger in his tone, to be sure, but behind that lurks something more, something almost…

_Hopeful?_

_He’s been through so much…._

There’s what feels like a piece of gravel stuck in his throat and something hot and wet welling up in his eyes, making his vision blur.

_Shit._

_I care about him. I really do_

_I can’t believe this._

_He’s Fire,_ Jet thinks to himself, trying desperately to cling to something _solid_ in this world of shifting waves. _He’s Fire Nation, and you_ know _what they do- you_ saw _what happened to Mom- and all the rest-_

“I’m not a monster,” Zuko says, his voice soft, almost a whisper.

The threatening tears in Jet’s eyes finally spill over, leaving wet trails on his cheeks that catch the midday sun.

His next words are rough and hoarse, heavy with pain and rage and disbelief that he’d even say such a thing, that his mouth would move in _those_ patterns and produce _those_ sounds.

“I know.”

He says nothing more as Zuko’s hand takes his.

And there they sit, watching the fluffy white clouds dance through the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's baaaack.


	10. The Piece Of Me

_I’m not a monster._

_Jet… he doesn’t hate me anymore._

_I’m an idiot. He’s just saying that. Of_ course _he does. Everyone in this_ world _hates me. Why am I thinking that Jet’s somehow changed?_

_I can’t believe it. He’s definitely lying._

And yet…

The thought- of the iron-hard wall of hate between them crumbling at long last- feels oddly… _light_ , as if, if Zuko keeps thinking like this _,_ if he keeps holding Jet’s hand like this, he’ll somehow sprout wings and fly off, a firecracker in a daytime sky.

_No. He still hates me. Nothing has changed._

_And… even if he_ did _care about me, everything_ else _would still be the same. I’d still be the Prince, he’d still be an Earth Kingdom peasant, and I’d find the Avatar, go home and forget_ all _about this mess for good._

_He and I… we never could…_

Zuko pushes down the part of him that chirps out nasty treasonous thoughts like _this war is wrong_ and _your father never loved you_ and _Jet’s the only real friend you’ve ever had._

And the worst (best) thought of all: _I don’t want to go home. I want to stay._

_With Jet._

_Stop it!_

Zuko _knows_ he should let go of Jet, but it feels like someone has earthbent their hands together.

And so he _tightens_ his fingers around Jet’s hand instead, afraid that if he lets go, he’ll fall into the void.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Maybe it’s _Jet_ that’s causing him to fall.

The scary part is that Zuko doesn’t know if he wants to be rescued.

Jet turns to face him, though he can’t quite seem to meet Zuko’s eyes, and his tears leave sparkling tracks down his cheeks.

_He’s crying?_

_Did he… shit._

_Did he really mean what he said?_

Zuko’s heartbeat does a funny jump at the thought, and he almost has to stop himself from reaching out and wiping the other boy’s tears away.

But not quite.

He’s not _that_ lost yet.

Or maybe he’s not that found.

“Jet?”

“Yeah?”

“You said I’m not a monster.” His next words feel forced and oddly light, as if his mouth twists around a strange laugh. “But you don’t really believe that, do you. You still hate me just as much as ever.”

“I _don’t.”_

The words _themselves_ are an angry snarl, but it’s impossible to doubt their ring of painful truth.

“What, do you _want_ me to hate you or something? ‘Cause I’d be _more_ than happy to oblige,” Jet snaps.

_He_ was _telling the truth!_

_He doesn’t hate me anymore!_

That light, floating sensation is back again, stronger than before and sharing space in Zuko’s brain with a hundred fantasies of leaning forward and wrapping his arms around Jet, of pressing their lips together and letting their bodies, hearts, minds, _souls_ all entwine and become one, a Gordian Knot of two people who never, _ever_ should have met.

And maybe, just _maybe,_ if he does so, if he reaches out to touch him and doesn’t stop, the some of his own lightness will spread to Jet and they’ll go flying into the sky and leave this mess of a world and all the hatred, all the rules keeping them from each other behind.

“Zuko?” Jet sounds almost as disbelieving as he would if he’d suddenly found himself smack-dab in the middle of the Spirit World.

“What?” 

“You’re _smiling_.”

_What am I_ thinking?! _I_ can’t _fall in love with him._

_I have a duty to my country! I can’t just go running off with some Earth Kingdom peasant! It’s just not_ right.

_What would Father say?_

Zuko tries to picture what Fire Lord Ozai’s face would look like if he knew his son was putting his feelings for a male Earth Kingdom peasant ahead of his duties to the Fire Nation and tries not to wince.

“I’m _not_ smiling,” he says with all the bitterness he can muster.

“Well, you _were._ Just a second ago,” Jet says with a smirk. “You should do it more. You’re pretty cute when you smile.”

“I thought you said I was cute when I’m angry,” Zuko grumbles, turning his face away from Jet so he can’t see the blush lingering on his unscarred cheek.

“I think it’s both.” With those words, Jet laughs and slips his arm around Zuko’s shoulder, pulling him closer. “But…. you really should smile more. Hey, it can’t be bad for you.”

_I can’t love him. It would be a disgrace._ Zuko squeezes his eyes shut. I’m _a disgrace._

_I always have been._

Zuko pushes Jet away from him and pulls himself to his feet, hot tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

_Disgrace disgrace disgrace._

_Shut_ up!

He storms off to the far edges of the raft, trying _desperately_ to go _somewhere, anywhere,_ but here, with the boy who sets his heart on fire and pulls him into the sky, far, far away from home.

_Why?!_ he feels like shouting. Why _does Jet have to exist?!_

_Why do_ I _have to exist_?

His tears make tiny circles in the water.

ooo

“Jet?” Zuko says some time later, more out of an attempt to break the oppressive, smothering _silence,_ the kind of silence that comes when you’re utterly alone, save for the birds and the wind and the steadily lapping waves, than anything else.

Jet doesn’t turn to face him. “What?” 

“Well…. this may sound stupid, but… we’ve got this fishing line and all, but how do we know if we’ve caught anything?” 

Jet shoots him an incredulous look. “Yes, it _does_ sound stupid. You’ve really never been fishing before?”

“Well, uh… no. Not really.”

Jet rolls his eyes. “Oh right. The whole royalty thing. Here’s what you do. You just keep one hand one the line, wait for a tug, then pull it in. Got that, Your Highness?” 

Zuko glares back at him. _I thought I told you to stop calling me that._ “Yeah. I got it. Whatever. So we just wait?

“Yeah.”

“How long is it gonna take?”

“Until a fish bites it.” Jet sighs. “You’re not a real patient person, are you?”

ooo

 

Three hours later, Jet realizes just how right he was.

It turns out Zuko’s method of catching fish involves a lot of long sighs and angry glares at the water, as if he can somehow _force_ the fish onto their makeshift hook by thoughts alone. To Jet, it’s just one more tick on the list of his _annoyingly_ endearing traits.

Now, Zuko sits at the edge of their raft, watching the late afternoon’s elderly sun change the world from blue to gold, and _Jet_ watches as his shoulders rise and then fall with the sort of breath that’s drawn as tight as a string, as if he’s only one more worry, one more bad day, one more scar, away from snapping in two like a broken twig.

Jet remembers that first day on the ferry and that first glimpse of the strange, scarred boy who carries himself like a cross between nobility and a too-tightly coiled spring, and remembers wondering just _what_ it would take to work his way past the other boy’s shell, what it would take to make his lips smile, what it would take to feel them against his own.

Jet remembers Zuko’s fleeting smile and his good cheek flushed red, and he tosses and turns that memory until it’s worn like a cobble on a storm-tossed shore, then tucks it in close to his heart and feels the sharp, deep bite of _he’s the Fire Prince_ with it.

It draws blood.

_You should hate him._

_But I don’t. I’ve_ tried, _but I don’t._

Jet closes his eyes, and, within seconds, he’s eight years old again and smelling burning flesh on the wind.

_This is what the Fire Nation does,_ he thinks, or forces himself to. _They’re murderers. Heartless monsters that leave a trail of ash and rubble and broken lives in their wake. I should hate them… I_ should _._

_Mom, Dad… if you were still alive… what would you think of me right now?_

_…I guess, what I’m_ trying _to say here is, which is worse, trying to drown a village or feeling_ this _for the_ Prince _of the spirits-damned_ Fire Nation?

The question feels ridiculous, even to him.

_I’ll probably have to kill him at some point, still…._

Jet’s breath stops short.

_I can’t… I_ won’t… _I_ have _to…_ damn _it!_

The thought of this world without Zuko in it, without the boy who’s burned him and warmed him and caught his heart in his flames, with him all alone against the sea and the sky… 

_And yet… if I don’t kill him eventually… he’ll just go_ back. _He’ll capture the Avatar, go back to his father, and… fuck._

Jet feels distinctly as if his heart is being split in two.

_Damn you, Zuko. Damn you. If I hadn’t seen you that day on the ferry, then_ none _of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have fallen for you- I wouldn’t be sitting here wondering if killing the person who’s trying to capture the Avatar is the fucking_ right thing to do or not!

Jet’s hands tighten around the broken edges of the raft, leaving bloody splinters in their wake.

Damn  _you!_ _  
_

_If I hadn’t met you, Zuko…. if_ only _I’d never met you… though, somehow, even after_ all this… _I’m glad I did._

He steals a glance at Zuko, his eyes tracing the muscles of the other boy’s back, his mind filled with memories… that first night on the ferry; their first moments together at sea; the stinging reveal; their first kiss; the days of thirst that followed; Zuko telling his story, his voice raw and broken, his eyes so _bright_ against the pitch of the night; their hands intertwined…

_So glad._

_Look at me. I’m pathetic. Letting my feelings get ahold of me like this… If he doesn’t die, then… then the Fire Nation might win. I can’t- I_ won’t _let that happen. I_ won’t.

_When we get rescued, I’ll_ definitely _kill him. It’s for the world. I_ have _to._

The board in Jet’s clenched fist finally snaps, letting the pieces of wood fall into the water with a soft _plop._

_I’m sorry, Zuko,_ Jet thinks as a fresh round of tears springs to his eyes, _I’m gonna have to hurt you._

The noise he makes is half a sob, half an inhuman cry.

_I’m sorry… so sorry…_

ooo

The noise that comes from Jet is bleeding and broken and _chilling,_ and Zuko’s heart skips a beat at the sound.

“Jet?” he says, turning to face the other boy. “What’s wrong?”

Jet looks up at him, tears sparkling on his cheeks once more. “I’m going to kill you.”

Zuko sucks in a breath. _I knew it. I_ knew _it was too good to be true. You still hate me. I was a fool._

His body moves into a firebending stance in a heartbeat and he watches Jet’s face melt from sadness to anger at the sight and all he can think is _why?_

_I thought… I thought he didn’t hate me anymore. I thought we_ w _ere_ past _that… but… he’s sad. Maybe he doesn’t… I don’t_ understand.

He lets his hands drop to his sides.

_If he still doesn’t hate me… then why does he still want me dead?_

And it’s that word that manages to escape his lips.

“Why?”

“Not _now._ But after we’re rescued…” Jet says, his voice thick. “You have to die. Otherwise…” here his face twists into a sneer, “you’ll just go running back to your precious daddy, won’t you?”

Zuko closes his eyes. _Yes. I will._

Jet chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “I was right. Damn it. I was _right."_

His expression changes into one twisted by rage- whether at him or at something else, Zuko doesn’t know. “ _Why_ are you doing this, Zuko? _Why_ are you even _listening_ to him!? All that bastard’s ever done is _hurt_ you- hurt the _world. Why?!”_

_I need my honor back. It’s my duty,_ he thinks, or forces himself to. 

The words that spill out, half-mumbled and unbidden, are something entirely different.  “I’m sorry, Jet.”

“I’m sorry too.”

And their world falls silent save for the drumbeat lapping of the waves.

ooo

The sun is almost swimming by the time their lonely world changes again, its fiery rays painting the sea a bloody gold.

Jet’s the first one to notice it, the speck darting across the horizon like a fly against the amber sun, growing larger by the second.

A ship.

_So this is it._

_The part where we try to kill each other and pretend these last few days never happened._

He steals a glance at Zuko, sitting there on the raft with his fingers trailing in the water.

_I’m sorry._

Jet pushes him out of his heart, hardens it like crystal.

“There’s a ship.”

Zuko’s head snaps up. “Where?" 

Jet points. 

Zuko’s face settles into a mask of grim determination, his hands moving into a firebending stance once more. He knows what is to come, just as much as Jet does.

_No. Not yet,_ Jet thinks. _I’m unarmed. I can’t win against him._

_Once we’re safe, he’ll be a prisoner of war, won’t he? I won’t have to hurt him_ myself.

And Jet can breathe again.

_I wish…_

ooo

_The Avatar once told me that, in a different lifetime, we would’ve been friends,_ Zuko thinks as he watches Jet, trying to still the pounding of his heart. _What would you and I have been, Jet?_

He knows.

He’s known all along- he’s just been unable to _say_ it, to shape the feelings in his heart into a name.

A brilliant orb of fire whistles through the air above their heads and lands in the water just short of the raft, sending up a great column of steam with a _boom!_ that shatters the still air like ice.

Zuko looks up, his breath caught in his throat.

He knows that fire- and sure enough, their hoped-for (maybe rescue, maybe damnation) sails proudly clad in red and black.

It’s a Fire Nation ship. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I bet you thought this fic was dead! (though I can't promise regular updates).
> 
> This chapter was SUPPOSED to be fluffy, but Zuko wanted to angst, so I let him, and then JET wanted to angst...
> 
> I think I'm biologically incapable of writing fluff.
> 
> And looking back on it, I should've slipped Shingeki no Kyojin reference #152748 in there, (along with the Evangelion one). "Don't tell me you're still hesitant to fight Annie?"


End file.
